


Take Me Back To The Start

by myrmidryad



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Canon Disabled Character, Friendship, Happy Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team Human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 13:42:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19746913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmidryad/pseuds/myrmidryad
Summary: He glared at his unadorned hands, wondering how he ended up like this, twenty-eight years old with no friends, no boyfriend, no music, and no obvious individuality.An accident with the pods leaves Alex temporarily deaged to his 17 year old self, pre-prom, and said 17 year old is not best pleased with how his future has turned out. Heavy emphasis on Alex and Maria fixing their friendship as well as figuring out what to do about the Michael-shaped elephant in the room.





	Take Me Back To The Start

**Author's Note:**

> Quick premise for this fic: just imagine that everything happened as normal in season one, but Noah wasn't keeping Rosa's body in his pod, so Max never resurrected her.

Someone was shouting his name, and Alex’s head ached. He was lying on something hard, hard and rocky – actual rock, he realised as he rolled onto his side and covered his eyes with one hand. “Oh my God.”

“Alex!”

“Alex, are you alright?”

That was Liz, and a guy’s voice he didn’t quite recognise. “What happened?” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut and pushing himself up to sit. “Liz?”

“Are you alright?” Her hand was on his shoulder suddenly, and he sat up a little straighter and pulled his knees up to his chest. “Alex –”

“Liz.” The other guy’s voice was low, and he must have showed her something because Liz gasped.

Alex opened his eyes behind his hand and winced when they stung, filling with tears. He blinked them away as best he could and made himself drop his hand so he could see whatever had freaked Liz out so much. 

It was a metal leg.

Alex blinked away more tears and shook his head. “What happened?” he muttered, keeping his eyes down as he wiped them. “Are we in a cave? Did we get drunk?” Eyes clear, he looked up to see who the other guy was and stared. “…Guerin?” It looked like Guerin, but older, with stubble and wilder hair and a bit more bulk. He looked at Liz, kneeling next to him, and did another double take. “What the hell are you wearing?” A quick look down at himself provided the next obvious question. “What the hell am _I_ wearing?” 

They both looked like they were playing dress-up with their parents’ clothes. Liz was in a striped black and white top and dark jeans, brown boots dusty from the cave, a thick coat and scarf over it all. Boring clothes, and not, if Alex really thought about it, all that different from her usual getup, but there was something off about it all, something almost mom-like. And as for his own outfit, it was all plain and dark, and he was only wearing one sock and shoe. His right foot poked out from his jeans bare on the cave floor, and when he looked at the metal leg, he saw that the shoe that should have been on his foot was there instead, and there was the end of a sock type thing trailing limply from the top.

“Why have you given a fake leg my shoe?” he asked, and then frowned. “Wait, are these even my shoes? I don’t – these aren’t mine. What the hell happened?” And why was it so cold? He could see light from the cave entrance, so they couldn’t be that far underground, but all of their breaths were fogging in the air.

“Alex…” Liz shuffled back a bit, a weird, frightened expression on her face. “How old are you?”

Alex raised his eyebrows, an unsettled feeling sinking into his skin. Liz wasn’t joking. And she looked older. A glance at Guerin showed the same, though Guerin looked like he couldn’t decide whether to lash out or run. “Seventeen?” Alex said slowly, looking back at Liz. “Is this a joke? Did we get drunk and you decided to age yourselves up?”

“It’s 2019,” Guerin said before Liz could reply. Alex looked up at him, and Guerin clenched his jaw. “God, the one thing I ask you not to do, and you go and do it. Don’t mess about with the pods, I told you, literally ten minutes ago, and what do you do? You mess about with the pods.”

“Pods?” Alex twisted to look behind him for the first time, and couldn’t stop his jaw dropping. Three huge, glowing eggs were hovering behind him, still as statues, shimmering slightly in the dim light. “Oh my God.” He shoved himself to his feet, almost tripping, and stumbled away from them. “What the hell? What the hell are those?”

“We don’t have time for this.” Guerin ignored him and spoke to Liz, and despite his confusion Alex glared at him.

“Hey –”

“Shut up,” Guerin snapped, and Alex hated himself for flinching. For a split second, he thought Guerin looked guilty, but it vanished as soon as it had appeared. “We need to fix this,” he addressed Liz again, who reached out to Alex again, fingers brushing the sleeve of his jacket. Or at least, the jacket he was wearing, because he’d never seen this denim jacket before in his life, and if anything pointed towards this being the aftermath of a drunk prank, it was that he would never be dressed like this normally. It had a white fleece lining, for God’s sake. 

“Okay.” Liz slid her hand up to grip Alex’s shoulder, a weird, comforting gesture she’d never done before. “Alex, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Uh.” Alex looked between them, and at the leg on the floor. “Uh...I, I went to bed, last night. It was Friday – did I sneak out?” he asked Liz, bewildered. “Is that what this is? Did we get wasted in a cave for some reason?” He almost asked whether Rosa had been involved, but she’d been getting clean lately, and Liz was always so upset whenever they brought it up, so he bit his tongue. 

“No.” Liz squeezed his shoulder. “Anything else? What’s the date?”

“What, today? The...twenty-fourth, I think. Of May,” he added. “2008. Liz –”

“Prom hasn’t happened yet,” Guerin interrupted, staring at him with a different look in his eyes. “You haven’t graduated.”

“No? What’s going on?” Alex looked at the giant eggs again. “Is...shit, what time is it?” He had a watch, he realised, a bulky, ugly thing, and even if he didn’t recognise it, it told him that it was past noon. “Shit, _shit_ , my dad is gonna kill me –”

“It’s 2019, Alex!” Guerin snapped again, and Alex finally realised that when he said twenty-nineteen, he meant the year two thousand and nineteen. “Your dad is the least of your problems right now.”

“Prove it.” Alex could snap right back if he wanted to, and he stepped away from Liz’s hand and glared at them both. “If it’s 2019, prove it. Show me a newspaper or something.”

“I don’t have time for this.” Guerin, infuriatingly, ignored him again and spoke to Liz instead. “You catch him up, I’ll get started on trying to figure out whatever the hell he did to make this happen.”

He certainly behaved like an adult, nothing like the Michael Guerin Alex knew. Not as good looking either, he thought unkindly as he let Liz take his arm again and steer him away from the eggs as Guerin went up to them and started running his hands over their surfaces. They shone where his skin touched them, like there was shimmering water inside them that reacted to him.

“Wait,” he muttered, pulling away from Liz for a second to grab the metal leg and take off the sock and shoe that someone had put on it. He stood on one leg to put them on himself, making a face at how dull they were. “Where the hell did these clothes come from?” he asked Liz, and despite what he’d said, Guerin turned around to look at them.

In the light from the eggs, he looked wild and strange. “Short answer?” he said, eyes fixing for a second on Alex’s legs. “Aliens are real, the year is 2019, and you messed about with alien tech and somehow reversed your body back to being seventeen years old again. We’re going to fix this, but until we do, you can’t tell anyone what’s just happened.”

“Here,” Liz said softly before he could ask any other questions, and handed him what looked like the fanciest, most expensive iPhone he’d ever seen in his life. It was huge too, and Alex didn’t even want to touch the screen, even though it was cracked in one corner. Liz seemed to realise this, and touched one of the icons for him, bringing up Google. “Type something,” she said. “Anything.”

Alex swallowed and cupped the phone carefully. “Where did you get this?” he whispered. “What happened to your normal phone? And why does the logo look different?” he added, noticing that Google looked weird. Liz had a beat-up old Nokia, a hand-me-down from Rosa that could barely take photographs. This phone looked…well, it looked like it had come from the future. 

“This is my phone.” She nudged him gently. “And they’ve changed the logo a bit since 2008. Go on, Google something.”

He didn’t want to search for something as obvious as the date, so Alex searched ‘Elizabeth Ortecho’.

“Oh my God,” Liz groaned, and that embarrassed tone was familiar at least, even if the results were not. Alex used the tip of his index finger to scroll. Liz’s Facebook page was there, but also a LinkedIn account, and a few articles that cited her work as some sort of fancy scientist. 

Alex searched for Maria DeLuca next, and found a website for the Wild Pony. A good website too, nothing that Mimi would have been able to set up by herself. There definitely hadn’t been a website for the Wild Pony yesterday. Maria would have told them.

Alex had spent a lot of time reading and watching fantasy and sci-fi, and he’d always told himself that if anything fantastical happened to him, he’d be ready for it. He’d roll with the punches, he’d figure things out. He wouldn’t go around wailing that something couldn’t possibly be real when it was obviously happening right in front of him. 

So he was in the future. January 2019. He could accept that. Whether this was a time-travel scenario or not didn’t matter right now. He would accept the truth as it was presented to him and deal with it accordingly. 

“Okay.” Alex didn’t recognise his own voice, it was so faint. “Okay.” He looked over at Guerin, so obviously older than the boy Alex had just offered his tool shed to last week, and back at Liz, who also looked older, if less obviously. She was the same height, had the same hoop earrings and long hair, but her eyes were older in some way Alex couldn’t quite describe. There was the slightest hint of lines at the corners of her eyes and across her forehead.

“Let’s go outside,” Liz said softly, and Alex nodded, letting her lead him away from the eggs, and Guerin, who had his back to both of them now.

The light outside was blinding, and horribly painful on Alex’s eyes. He had to shade them with his hand again and look at the ground instead of the horizon, letting Liz lead him carefully down the slope to a flatter path. An ugly station wagon and a familiar truck were parked there, and Alex laughed weakly when he saw. “It’s been ten years and Guerin has the same truck?”

“I think he’s attached to it.” Liz led him to the car and fished in Alex’s jacket pocket for the keys to let them both in. He let her get in the driver’s side without protest, just glad to get into the shade. The interior was cold, but Liz got the heating turned up fast so they didn’t have to sit there shivering, and Alex looked mournfully at the soulless seats, the total lack of personality. It was clean and empty, like a hire car. He’d always imagined driving something cooler as an adult. “So.” She looked at him and pushed her hair over her shoulders. “You wanna ask questions, or should I just try and catch you up on everything important all in one go?”

Alex swallowed and looked down at his hands. No nail polish, no rings, no bracelets. “You go first,” he decided. “I’ll ask questions afterwards.”

“Okay.”

It was a hell of a story. Apparently, the future sucked. Michael Guerin and the Evans twins were aliens. Rosa was dead. Rosa, and Jasmine and Kate, of all people, had been murdered by a fourth, murderous alien who had used Isobel Evans’ body to commit the crime, and Max and Michael had been so scared of any authority figures finding out what they were that they’d covered it up by making it look like a car crash. Maria had taken over the Wild Pony. Liz had left town for ten whole years, and Alex had joined the Air Force.

They’d both come back to Roswell at roughly the same time. Liz had been shot, Max had saved her life and told her aliens were real. She’d figured out the truth of Rosa’s death, and Max had ended up killing Isobel’s evil alien husband. Alex had figured out aliens were real by himself (he was oddly proud of his future self) when he’d found a piece of the destroyed ship, which he’d recently given back to the aliens. Guerin and Maria were dating, and he’d told Maria everything, so she was in the loop too. A lot had happened.

Rosa was dead, and Alex had joined the Air Force. Above everything else, Alex’s thoughts kept circling back to that. He stayed very still, unfamiliar hands twisting in his lap. “The future sucks,” he muttered, and Liz laughed, voice cracking a little from having talked for so long.

“Not all of it.” She sighed, and it was so, so weird to have one of his best friends acting like a mom. “Maybe we should call Kyle.”

“Kyle?” His head snapped up. “Kyle _Valenti_? Oh my God, please tell me you’re not still seeing that asshole.”

Liz’s laugh this time was so loud Alex found himself smiling too. “No,” she grinned. “Not since high school.”

“Thank God. You’re still friends though?” he asked dubiously. He couldn’t see Kyle being chill enough to stay friends with an ex.

“He’s your friend too,” she said, amused, and Alex snorted.

“Sorry, I thought I went forward in time, not backwards. Kyle hasn’t been my friend since we were kids.”

“He got better again, I guess.” Liz shrugged. “He’s nice. He’s probably the sanest person I know.”

“And he knows about aliens?”

“Uh huh. You guys have been working together to dismantle this thing called Project Shepherd. Your dad set it up.”

“Wait,” Alex’s brain stalled. “My _dad_ knows about aliens?”

Liz nodded, grave. “He’s known the whole time. He was tracking them, trying to get enough evidence to kidnap them or kill them or something. You’ve been kind of evasive about the whole thing,” she added dryly. “But you and Kyle are close these days. You talk to him more than any of us, even Maria.”

“Take me to Maria,” Alex said immediately. “Screw Kyle, why would you call Kyle? Call Maria.”

Something complicated flickered across Liz’s face. “Kyle’s a doctor now. He should probably check you over.”

“What for? Does he deal with time travel a lot?” Alex rolled his eyes, and regretted it when it made spikes of pain shoot through his skull. “Ow.”

“No, but…” She trailed off as her phone buzzed, and Alex saw Guerin’s name on the screen when she pulled it out of her pocket. She read the message quickly and frowned. “I just need to check in with Michael. Stay here, okay?”

“Yeah, no.” Alex got out of the car, squinting against the brightness. At least he could look at the sky without his head hurting so much now. 

Liz got out too, still frowning. “Alex –”

“I’m seventeen, not seven,” Alex told her, sharper than he meant to. “Sorry,” he added. “But I’m not gonna sit in the car while you talk to Guerin about whatever’s going on with all this alien stuff.”

“Fine.” Liz sighed and jerked her head in the direction of the slope. “Let’s go then.”

Alex followed her carefully and tried to imagine his own future having already happened. Was this going to be something he could fix when he got back to his own time? Was this some alien power giving him a chance to fix things for everyone?

His serious thoughts were being competed with by the increasingly hysterical realisation that he was living in a Blink-182 song. _Aliens Exist_ indeed.

In the cave, Guerin glowered when he saw him, and he and Liz started discussing the eggs in scientific terms that quickly went over Alex’s head. He found himself staring at the leg on the floor again, and went over to pick it up.

Liz had told him he’d gone to Iraq. She’d said she didn’t really know any of the details, and she hadn’t mentioned any injuries, but Alex wasn’t an idiot. The metal leg – the prosthetic leg, he corrected himself mentally – was well made and strong, with a springy ankle joint and no knee. Alex looked down at his right foot and swallowed. How old was he going to be when this happened?

“He can’t stay here,” Guerin hissed, and Alex’s attention snapped back to him and Liz. “We need to figure this out, but it’s not happening in the next couple of hours. Hell, I can’t stay here overnight – we don’t have any food, or more than a couple bottles of water.”

“Where do you suggest then?” Liz and Michael Guerin had never really been friends, but right now she sounded exasperated in the way she did when Alex or Maria were annoying her. Irritated, but still fond. 

“Max’s place.” Guerin shot Alex a quick glance that rocked him back on his heels for a second. “It’s out of the way, no one will see him there.”

“We don’t even know what other stuff he was supposed to be doing today,” Liz said, starting to bite her lip. “What if he’s supposed to check in at the base or something?”

“Check his phone?” Guerin suggested, for the first time sounding less than certain. It was a relief to hear, something more familiar. Alex put his hands in his pockets and drew out a sleek black phone a lot like Liz’s. 

“It’s got a password,” he said, heart sinking. “I don’t know it.”

“Shit. No fingerprint?” Liz asked, coming over to fold her hands around Alex’s and press his thumb to the home button. Nothing happened, and she cursed in Spanish.

“Back to plan A then,” Guerin drawled. “Take him to Max’s. I’ll go get some supplies, we can meet back here and see if we can crack this.”

He was about to be hustled away again, and for a second when Guerin turned his back on him, all Alex could think about was the way Guerin hadn’t apologised for stealing his guitar from the music room, and the way he’d squinted up at him and not confirmed or denied that he was sleeping in his truck. The same truck that was sitting down the hill from this cave.

Michael had once driven him and Max out of town after school. They’d intended to study, for Michael to help him and Max with their Physics homework, since Max said there was nothing science and math related that Michael couldn’t do, but they’d ended up trying to teach Max how to play the guitar instead. Alex had had his guitar with him, Max had borrowed one from the music room, and it had quickly become obvious that he didn’t have the patience to learn anything about music. Alex hadn’t really hung out much with Michael Guerin before that, but they’d both made fun of Max’s terrible playing, and Max had taken a photo of them standing in the road with their guitars, like a dumb album cover for a non-existent band.

He’d taken a photo of Max and Michael sat in the back of Michael’s truck, cross-legged and facing each other, both frowning as Michael tried to teach Max how to play a G chord. In retrospect, that was probably when his crush on Guerin had started. At this point, any guy who wasn’t a total dick to Alex became a daydream boyfriend. His standards in his imagination weren’t exactly high.

Guerin was crazy smart, everyone knew that. As smart as Liz, maybe even smarter if he’d ever bothered putting any effort into his classes. Liz had gone through a phase of letting it get under her skin, taking it personally that Michael could ace the tests without even seeming to study for them. Alex had always figured he’d get out of Roswell with all the other smart kids and go to some fancy college and leave them all in his dust. But apparently ten years after graduating, Guerin was still in Roswell, looking like...well, like a cowboy fantasy Alex hadn’t expected to be so hot, and he might still live in his truck, for all Alex knew.

“Wait,” he blurted, as Liz tugged him the direction of the cave entrance. “Guerin –”

“Kinda busy, Alex.” The asshole didn’t even turn around, and Alex really didn’t expect that to sting, but apparently he still had a crush on Guerin no matter how scruffy he ended up.

“I guess you don’t grow out of being a dick,” he snapped, because hitting back was always his first instinct, and guilt was a familiar chaser. He took a quick breath and hurried on. “Look, just...Liz hasn’t been in Roswell for a decade, can I just ask you a few things?”

Guerin squared his shoulders and turned around, face a mask. A stubbled mask, and that and the hair were the things that made him look older, Alex decided on the spot. A shave and a haircut, and he’d look young again. “Fine,” Guerin said, flat. “You’ve got three questions.”

Alex swallowed and glanced at Liz. “Can you give us a moment?”

She raised her eyebrows, but when Guerin nodded she lifted her hands up in surrender. “Okay, I’ll be in the car.”

Alex waited until the sound of her retreating footsteps had completely faded, and then steeled himself to meet Guerin’s eyes. His courage faltered, and the wrong question slipped out before he could stop it, in a quieter voice than he’d meant. “Did you ever use the tool shed?”

Guerin hadn’t expected that. He tipped his chin up like he was taking a hit, blinking quickly. “That’s one of your questions?”

“You have a problem with that? That doesn’t count,” Alex added quickly, scowling.

Guerin snorted, the corner of his mouth creasing in a smile. It looked a little different than Alex remembered, but maybe that was just the stubble. “Okay. Yeah.” He sighed, soft. “Yeah, I slept in it a few times.”

“Okay.” That was something at least. Alex tried not to frown and asked his next question carefully. “Did I do something...did I do something to you?” Too hesitant, too afraid. He looked down for a second, not wanting to see Guerin’s reaction to that, but when no reply came he had to check his expression. 

Guerin’s lips were parted, and he shook his head after a second. “No, you...why would you –”

“You don’t seem to like me very much.” Too obvious. Guerin was straight, Alex was 99% sure of that. Who knew how an adult Guerin would react to Alex’s crush, even if it was technically in his past? But it was too late to take the words back now, and Guerin didn’t look angry or suspicious. 

He scrubbed a hand over his face and shook his head again. “Shit.”

“Sorry,” Alex said automatically, and wished he hadn’t. 

“No, it’s...look, I like you.” Guerin met his eyes, and he didn’t look like he was lying, but he didn’t look exactly happy either. “I do. But present...older...whatever, 2019 you, is gonna kick my ass if I don’t figure out how to fix this as soon as possible.”

Silence, and Alex finally nodded. “Okay.”

“Last question,” Guerin reminded him, another little smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. It unsettled Alex for some reason, and he couldn’t make himself ask for what he really wanted to know. Hell, he wasn’t even sure what it was he wanted to know. “Well?” Guerin prompted, impatient, and Alex shook his head and started for the cave entrance, putting the metal leg down carefully on the way.

“I’ll keep it in reserve,” he muttered, and Guerin laughed, a short bark that wasn’t amused at all.

Alex couldn’t figure out how to fit all of his questions into one sentence, and couldn’t imagine how to ask them to this adult version of Michael Guerin, who said he liked him but clearly couldn’t wait for Alex to get out of his sight. It shouldn’t have hurt so much. Logically, there was no reason for Alex to be taking it so personally. 

Liz either didn’t know why Guerin disliked him or wouldn’t tell him, he knew from their conversation in the car before. She hadn’t been in Roswell. Though apparently, neither had Alex. So had he pissed Guerin off in the time since coming back to town? That was the most likely explanation, that Guerin didn’t like his future self. Maybe his future self was a self-righteous asshole; maybe he’d turned out like his brothers. Maybe the Air Force really did straighten him up.

The sun was still painfully bright, giving off no heat even in its full glare. He kept his head down and picked his way down the slope to the car – his car – where Liz was waiting, pretending his stomach wasn’t churning.

“Maria knows about aliens,” he said as he got in, making up his mind as he buckled his seatbelt. “Right?”

“Right,” Liz frowned.

“So call her.”

“Why?”

Alex gave her an incredulous look. “Because she’s our best friend?” Liz bit her lip, and dread dropped into Alex’s stomach like a cold stone. “She’s still our friend, right?”

“Yeah,” Liz said, but it was a long way from convincing. She started the car, frowning, and pulled away. “I mean, she only found out about all this stuff recently, and she’s still mad at us for keeping it a secret. You two kind of haven’t talked for a while, actually.”

That hurt more than anything else so far. More than the way Guerin looked at him, more than knowing he’d joined the Air Force, more than knowing he was going to lose his leg. Alex swallowed. “Gimme your phone.”

“What? Alex –”

“I’m calling her,” Alex snapped. “This is important. She’s twenty-eight now, right?”

“Twenty-nine.” Liz gave him an awful, sad look. “Her birthday was last week.”

Alex barely stopped himself from asking whether he’d given her a gift. He could tell from Liz’s expression that he hadn’t. “Right. Well, I’m gonna fix this. Phone, Liz. Now.”

Her lips twitched, and she handed over her futuristic phone. “I forgot you used to do that.”

“What?”

“Order us about when you got annoyed. Like a drill sergeant.”

He’d joined the Air Force. Alex shook his head and opened Liz’s phone, pushing that issue to the side for now. He could freak out about it later. Liz had so many people in her contacts, and he had to force himself not to check for other familiar names as he looked up Maria and hit the call button.

“Hey babe,” Maria answered after three rings, jaunty and familiar. Alex smiled reflexively at the sound of her voice. “What’s up?”

“It’s me,” Alex told her. “It’s Alex. Um, hi.”

Silence. Alex swapped the phone from his right hand to his left so he could hide the right down by the side of the seat and squeeze it into a fist. Maria would normally laugh and ask if Alex had stolen Liz’s phone for her own good. She’d warn him not to read her texts or look through her photos in case he saw anything gross meant for Kyle. 

“Is Liz okay?” Maria asked, a rush of breathy static in Alex’s ear. “Is she hurt?”

“No, she’s driving.” What had he done? Why weren’t they friends? Alex adjusted his grip on the huge, smooth phone and rushed on. “Something alien happened, and I’m seventeen. It’s like I’ve gone forward in time or something, and nothing makes sense, and Guerin and the Evans twins are aliens and I did something to one of their eggs –”

“Pods,” Liz corrected.

“Pods,” Alex said. “Fine, and now I’m...well, I’m seventeen. It was 2008 yesterday, and I woke up in a cave and I thought...well, I’m not drunk, or high. Is it 2019 for you too?”

“Liz is there?”

Alex absorbed the pain of the question and closed his eyes. “Yeah.” Maria didn’t want to talk to him. What had he _done?_

“Put me on speaker.”

“Okay.” His throat hurt, and he swallowed twice more as he lowered the phone and looked at the screen. He jabbed the symbol that looked like it probably meant speaker phone, and held it carefully in his lap as the volume of Maria’s breathing suddenly jumped up.

“Liz?” Maria asked.

“It’s all true,” Liz said, not looking away from the path as they pulled onto a slightly flatter dirt road. Wherever they were had to be pretty far out of town, because Alex couldn’t see anything around them but desert. 

“What the hell were you doing? Is Michael there?”

“He’s with the pods. Alex asked if he could see them this morning, and Michael and I figured we’d come out for a few hours and have a look at them too, test a couple of theories. Alex was asking a bunch of questions, and he was examining one of them and he must’ve done something? Because then he just passed out and collapsed, and, um…” Liz glanced at him. “His leg regrew.”

“What the _hell?_ ”

“Well he still had both when we were in high school!” Liz sounded frazzled now, and Alex rubbed his right knee through his jeans, wondering in a horrible, distant sort of way how it had happened, and how much it had hurt.

“Jesus. Okay, well, Michael’s still at the cave, right? Can you fix this?”

“We’re gonna try, obviously. I’m gonna leave Alex at Max’s, and go back to the cave to help. Michael’s already told Max and Isobel.”

“What about Kyle?” Maria asked, and Alex made a face despite himself.

“Don’t tell me you like him too in the future?”

Another horrible beat of silence. “I so can’t do this,” Maria muttered. “Tell Kyle. I need to do a stock check.”

“Wait,” Alex cried. “Wait, don’t – I wanna see you.”

Liz was staring at him, but after a second she looked back at the road and sighed. “Maria,” she said quietly. “Prom hasn’t happened yet, for this Alex. Rosa hasn’t died. We were all best friends before that happened, remember?”

One of the things Alex hated the most about himself was how easily he cried. No amount of swallowing or looking up or blinking was going to help past a certain point, and he could feel the lump in his throat growing, his vision blurring with tears. He swiped at his eyes quickly with his free hand and clenched his jaw to stop his chin trembling, willing his voice to stay steady as he spoke. “You’re my best friends _now_. I don’t...I don’t even know where Max lives, but please, can I see you? Can you meet us there, or, or I could come to the Pony, if that’s where you are now.”

“We can’t let anyone see you,” Liz said, infuriatingly sensible as always. “How would you explain suddenly having both legs again? You look younger too, anyone who knows you well will see that.”

Alex made a frustrated sound and rubbed his eyes again, throat tight. He could feel Liz’s eyes on him like a weight, and he hated it.

“I’ll help you with your stock take,” Liz said suddenly. “Okay? I’ll work behind the bar later this week if you want. I think you should come and meet us.”

Maria sighed. “Fine. But I have to be back by seven at the latest.”

The opening hours for the Wild Pony had been on their new website, Alex remembered. If the date that had been on the background of Liz’s phone screen was correct, it was a Sunday today, and the Wild Pony was closed. Maria didn’t even say goodbye before she hung up, and Alex stared at the screen of Liz’s phone until it went dark on the photo of Maria’s smiling face. She had different hair.

His vision was blurring again, and Alex slid the phone back into Liz’s jacket pocket with familiarity he suddenly worried about. “Are we still friends?” he asked, and felt the heat rise in his cheeks at how his voice cracked.

“Oh, Alex.” Liz sounded so sad, but Alex couldn’t look at her. “Of course we are.”

“Have we always been? You said you left Roswell after Rosa died, and I went...how did I, did I go through basic?” 

“Yeah.”

Alex couldn’t even imagine how he’d survived it. “Did we stay in touch?”

Liz sighed. “Not really. A bit, at first, but you were in training or whatever over the summer and I went on my road trip, and I just...stayed away. I think you did too. It’s not like Roswell was full of happy memories for me by that point. Everything just reminded me of Rosa, and it all hurt too much for me to even think of coming back.”

Alex shook his head and pressed his fingers to the corners of his eyes, worrying for a second about all the wiping he’d been doing earlier, worrying about his eyeliner, before remembering he wasn’t wearing any. 

“Where’s...does my dad still live here?” he asked quietly.

“Oh my God.” Liz gave him a wide-eyed look. “I totally forgot. Um, your dad is kind of in a coma?”

Alex felt something in him lift. “Really?”

Liz tried and failed to hold back a giggle. “Wow, no need to look so happy.”

“Please, like this isn’t the best case scenario.” Alex actually smiled back, relaxing into the chair a little. “Wow. Is he sick?”

“Well, uh, Kyle said he kind of had to put him in a medically induced coma after your dad tried to kill him. He actually did shoot him – I saw the bruise – but Kyle had a bullet-proof vest on, thank God.”

Alex absorbed all of that and stared at the road. “My dad tried to _kill_ him?” His dad had always liked Kyle better when they were kids. Kyle was stronger, more boyish, less sensitive. Alex’s friendship with him had always been slightly tainted by the knowledge that his father would have liked to swap them, for Kyle to be his son, for Alex to be someone else’s problem.

“Because you guys were dismantling his project thing, like I said.” Liz glanced at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said automatically. “Do you know anything else about Project Shepherd?”

“Not really. You and Kyle kept saying it was your responsibility and you didn’t want to drag the rest of us into it.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s very noble, and very annoying.”

“Kyle Valenti put my dad in a coma.” Alex tried out the words and examined the lightness they gave him. His dad was in the hospital, unconscious. His dad couldn’t touch him. When they were kids, Alex had played running away games with Kyle all the time. They’d pack up some rudimentary supplies and go off together, pretending they were on the run from the law. Secretly, Alex had wanted it to be true. He’d wanted Kyle to help him run away. 

This was even better. He let out a long breath that turned into a laugh. “Maybe Valenti is worth knowing in the future.”

Liz laughed, and in the distance Alex saw the haze of buildings appear. Roswell, still a long way off.

Max Evans had levelled up. Liz had let Alex look through a few of her most recent photos on her phone (and the quality was _insane_ , Alex couldn’t believe it until he took a couple of photos to check for himself), and Max had turned from a goofy, overlarge boy with a ridiculous attachment to baseball caps to a cowboy cop with permanent stubble.

“Is this an alien thing?” Alex demanded. “Are they resistant to razors or something?”

“I kinda like it,” Liz grinned, and Alex pretended to retch.

“Of course you do. Jeez, he looks more adult than any of you. And he’s a cop! What a sellout.”

“Hey!” Liz laughed and pushed his shoulder, taking her phone back. “He wants to protect people. And I think it’s kinda hot.”

“If you say one more word about thinking he’s hot, I’ll throw myself out of the car,” Alex told her, and grinned when she threw back her head and laughed again.

He’d looked at photos of himself too, scrutinising them in silence to check the differences. He had a big scar on his forehead in the future, and he’d kept his hair short without doing anything interesting with it, which was disappointing, but made sense if he was still in the military. No piercings, no tattoos, nothing visibly interesting at all. In some of the photos he was wearing patterned button-down shirts. One of them was pink.

He wasn’t quite desperate enough to ask Liz if he was still gay, but it was getting dicier by the minute. It didn’t matter if his dad was in a coma if his military methods had worked on Alex in the end.

The house they drove up to was right outside town, and it was huge. Alex whistled as they pulled to a stop. “Okay, be honest with me, is it Max you like, or his house?”

“The house is a nice bonus,” Liz said, saucy in a way that reminded Alex of Rosa. “Come on, that’s Maria’s car.”

Alex’s stomach dropped, and he looked up to see a familiar figure step out of an old red Chevy and straighten up. Liz was already getting out, so Alex had to follow suit, pushing open the door and unfolding himself from the low seat. 

Maria’s hair was shorter, gentle waves with pretty highlights like she’d always wanted. Stylish, but an older sort of style, with gold eyeshadow and big, dangly earrings. She looked like she was in her twenties, just like Liz did. She looked taller, though Alex knew she wasn’t. She wasn’t smiling. 

Alex approached her slowly, following in Liz’s wake. Maria didn’t look away from him, and as the distance between them shrunk, she frowned unhappily. “It’s really you, isn’t it?” Her gaze flicked down to his right leg, and Alex wished he wasn’t wearing the ugly clothes he was.

“Hi,” he said, uncertain. She closed her eyes and turned away, and Alex looked down, absorbing the stab of that pain and taking a deep breath.

“What am I doing here?” Maria asked Liz quietly, and Liz jerked her head at the house and started walking in the direction of the big wooden door beyond the patio.

“I need to go back to the cave to help Michael.”

“So I’m babysitting?”

Alex didn’t even have it in him to be insulted by that. 

“You’re being a friend,” Liz said firmly. “Okay?” She unlocked the door and walked in as though it was her house, not Max’s. “Imagine if you suddenly woke up as a seventeen year old in your current life. We’re going to fix this as soon as we can, but in the meantime…”

“Okay, alright.” Maria sounded tired, and Alex followed her and Liz inside.

Max’s house was beautiful. The front door opened into a combination kitchen living room with two walls of bookshelves, which was so Max that Alex sighed at the sight. There was a huge fireplace with a cow skull mounted above it, and a lot of exposed wood. There was art on the walls, throws and colourful cushions on the couch and chairs, rugs on the tiled floor, and it all looked so adult that Alex couldn’t quite believe it belonged to Max Evans, who freely admitted that his mother and sister picked out his clothes for him. This looked like the house of a man who had decorated himself, with lots of earthy colours and a borderline unhealthy book hoarding problem. 

Max had stayed in Roswell, become a cop, and had a beautiful home outside town where he probably alternated between reading and writing at that big desk behind the couch, looking out over the desert through his big glass doors. He finally had the girl of his dreams too. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but Alex still had to bury a kernel of bitterness at seeing it up close and personal.

Liz went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “You guys hungry? There’s some leftover pasta in here.”

“I ate already,” Maria said, and Alex shook his head.

“I’m okay.” He probably was hungry, but he wasn’t always so good at telling when he was nervous. Anything he ate right now he couldn’t imagine keeping down anyway.

“Suit yourselves.” Liz got the pasta out and spooned a huge portion into a lunchbox for herself. “I need to take off, but just help yourselves to whatever, Max won’t mind.” She put the pasta back and ducked down, emerging with a half gallon bottle of water that she hefted under her arm like it was nothing. “I’ve got my phone.”

“I don’t know your number,” Alex said, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out the phone that apparently belonged to his future self. “I can’t get into this thing, remember?”

“Shoot.” Liz frowned and put the water down, grabbing a notepad from the counter and a pen from her pocket. “No problem. My number’s here. I’ll write down a few more actually,” she muttered, getting her phone out to copy them down. “Max has a landline in the spare room, so you can use that if you need to contact any of us, okay?”

“Does Kyle know yet?” Maria asked. She wouldn’t look at Alex, who retreated a little more into the living room area.

“I don’t know. Maybe not, if Michael hasn’t told him. I’ll tell someone to tell him before I get back to the cave.” Liz gave her a quick smile and picked up the water and the lunchbox again. “Okay, now I have to go. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Alex didn’t know what to do with his hands. He watched Liz leave and gave Maria a sideways look in the silence that followed. She sighed and looked at him, and he shoved his hands in his pockets as though that would help. 

“Alright,” she said. “I guess you’ve got questions?”

This was so much worse than Guerin. Alex pulled his hands out of his pockets, feeling like an idiot, and held onto his elbows instead for a second before dropping them again. He had to force himself to meet Maria’s eyes, and only the hesitance he saw in her expression gave him the space for a little courage to form.

“Whatever I did, I’m sorry,” he said, and her eyes went wide with surprise. 

“What…” She shook her head and closed her eyes for a second before focusing on him again. “What do you mean?”

He licked his lips, nervous. “Well, we’re not...you don’t like me anymore.” It hurt to say it out loud, but it was obviously the truth. “I must’ve done something, so, I’m sorry.”

Her whole body seemed to lose whatever tension had been holding her rigid, and Maria looked away and let out a long, sad sigh before looking at him again. “Alex, this isn’t your fault.”

“Well it can’t be yours!” Alex gestured to her. “You’re too nice. So it’s my fault, I’ve been a bad friend, right?”

“Alex –”

“We left you behind.” Alex cut her off, and saw the words connect in the way Maria went still. “Me and Liz, we both just...we left, didn’t we? I don’t know why, but –”

“Rosa hasn’t died yet, for you?” Maria interrupted, and Alex shook his head. “And Guerin...you haven’t kissed museum guy yet?”

“Museum guy?” Alex raised his eyebrows, and everything else suddenly shrank in importance. “I kissed a _guy?_ ”

“Oh my God.” Maria turned away. “I need a drink.”

“Liz said we could help ourselves?” Alex offered. “I bet Max drinks fancy scotch or whatever.”

“Whoa, who said anything about you having a drink?” Maria gave him a look over her shoulder, equal parts amused and judging. “You’re only seventeen.”

“Wow, okay, I see how it is,” Alex grinned, weak but eager, desperate to keep the humour up between them. “I bet I have a driver’s licence that says I’m old enough. I could totally get served if I went out right now.”

“Good thing you’re staying put then.” Maria checked the fridge and made an annoyed sound. “If I were Max Evans, where would I keep my booze?”

Alex looked around. “Judging by this place, either an actual grown-up liquor cabinet, or hidden in a book.”

Maria snorted, checking the cupboards. “I’m telling him you said that.”

“Go ahead, it’s the truth. If he doesn’t have a hollowed-out book for keeping secret stuff in now, he’ll want to when I give him the idea.” 

Maria laughed, and Alex grinned at her back, floating on the success of having broken whatever tension she’d been holding onto. He could do this. She made a sound of triumph and took a half-full bottle of whisky down from a cupboard and found a glass a second later. Alex came over to the counter and sat on one of the little wooden stools on the living room side. It was just like being at the Wild Pony or the Crashdown, and Maria looked completely at home on her side as she poured herself a generous helping of whisky and put the bottle to one side.

“Okay.” She took a sip and shook herself out the way she always did when she was gearing up to something. “We can do this. I’m a big girl now.”

“Yeah, and you got hot,” Alex said, leaning back to give her a proper once-over. “Liz too. Do I get hot? Is it something in the water?”

Maria smiled, fond and oddly pained. “Oh, honey. You look pretty much exactly the same, so yeah, you get hot.”

Alex looked down at the counter, running his fingertips between the little square tiles on its surface. She was lying, he’d seen the photos of himself, but it was so nice of her that he didn’t want to argue. “I kissed a guy,” he said after a moment. “So I guess someone liked me enough to do that.” He took a breath and looked up again. “Who was it?”

Maria took a deep breath, then held up a finger and drained her glass. Alex raised his eyebrows and watched in silence as she poured herself another. “Okay,” she said, tapping her nails against the glass. “I’m gonna take it chronologically. So, maybe a week after prom, you kissed museum guy. I saw you that afternoon, I was bringing you food, y’know, like I did.” He nodded. “You told me about it, you were totally hyped. Then, I don’t know, that was literally the last time you spoke about it. Rosa died that night, so I didn’t really get the chance to ask about it for a couple of days, and when I did you said you couldn’t tell me who it was because you didn’t wanna out the guy, which was totally fair.” She waved a hand and took a sip of her drink.

“You left pretty soon after, didn’t come back for a million years, we kinda dropped out of regular contact with each other after a few years, mostly when you first got deployed. I don’t blame you for not wanting to come back, I know what your dad was like.”

Alex felt his face do _something_ in response to that and looked down at the counter again, quickly. “You know who he was now though, right? Museum guy?” He was going to kiss a guy, in Roswell, pretty soon if the thing about prom was true. A horrible thought occurred, and Alex snapped his head up to stare at Maria. “Oh my God, please tell me it wasn’t Valenti.”

Maria’s expression cracked and she burst out laughing. “Wow, oh my God, I wish it had been, that would’ve been hilarious.”

“Yeah, hilarious,” Alex said sarcastically. “The asshole homophobe was secretly gay the whole time. Dream come true.”

“No, I’m pretty sure Kyle’s as straight as they come, and way less of a dick these days. Some people really do grow out of that high school shit.” Maria sobered and looked down at her drink. “No, it was Guerin.”

Alex’s heart did something strange, like it was trying to leap and sink at the same time. “Michael Guerin?”

“You know any other Guerins?” Maria asked dryly, still not looking at him. “Yeah, Michael Guerin.”

Alex looked down and traced the pattern of one of the coloured tiles on the countertop, trying not to smile. He’d _hoped_ , but it had never really been serious. He’d had crushes on plenty of guys before, and known it was totally pointless every time because even if he wasn’t the only gay guy at school, there was no way anyone else would want to endure the bullshit he had to put up with for having a foot out of the closet the way he did. And Guerin was so…

Old now, he reminded himself, dousing the little spark that had flared up inside him. Older and angrier and obviously not into Alex anymore. The urge to smile flickered and died, and Alex looked at Maria again, suddenly confused as he remembered that she was dating Guerin now. “He’s gay?”

“Bi.” Maria closed her eyes and took another quick sip. “Okay, moving on. So, you leave town, so does Liz and Kyle and everyone else with a bright future ahead of them. Rosa’s dead, everything’s kind of shitty, and I start working at the bar with Mom. Life moves on, and Guerin...well, he upgrades from truck to trailer, he gets a cowboy hat, he hangs around and picks up women and drinks too much and busts up my tables and chairs when he gets into fights.” She took another drink, a quick, sharp gulp while her free hand curled into a fist on the countertop.

“Okay,” Alex said cautiously.

“Right.” Maria rolled her head on her neck. “Yeah. I date a string of idiots, including a Chad. Stop making that face,” she added, not looking at him, “I know, believe me.”

“Sorry.” Alex tried to school his face into something neutral, but couldn’t help grinning when she gave him a knowing, disgruntled expression.

“Yeah. So, life goes on, and then you come back to town.” She gave him a small, genuine smile that relaxed him better than anything else had so far. “We reconnect, it’s nice.”

“I say sorry, right?” Alex checked. “For being a crap friend?”

Her smile grew. “Yeah, you did, even though we were both pretty bad at staying in touch, so I said sorry too. And I don’t treat you any different for having been to war and losing your leg, so I think you appreciate that, even if you don’t really say so.” She shrugged and took another little sip of whisky. “And then Liz comes back too, and everything goes completely insane. She caught you up on all the crazy alien stuff, right?”

“Yeah. And that Rosa and Jasmine and Kate were murdered.”

“Yeah.” Maria rolled her eyes. “Did she tell you the alien idiots put Rosa in the front seat so it looked like she got high and killed them by accident? And everyone’s had it out for the Ortechos ever since?”

Alex sat up, jaw dropping. “What? No!”

“Typical Liz.” Maria shook her head. “Yeah, people were awful to her and her dad. Especially her dad, because Liz wasn’t around to be a target. Not just calling them names behind their backs either, I mean shit like bricks through the windows of the Crashdown and desecrating Rosa’s grave. Nasty stuff.”

Alex wished he couldn’t believe it, but it was easy to believe. His stomach churned, and he pressed his hand over his mouth for a second. “She didn’t say.”

“They couldn’t have put Kate or Jasmine in the front seat, right?” Maria made a disgusted sound. “Michael’s basically a certified genius, Max has read every book in Roswell, and Isobel could charm the skin off a snake, but not a single one of them thought to put a white girl up front. Idiots.”

Alex pushed down the lump in his throat that was threatening to choke him. “Rosa was murdered.”

“She didn’t deserve that shit,” Maria agreed, vicious and angry. “And neither did her family.” She took a deep breath and finished off the whisky. “Anyway. Point is, everyone’s back in town and Guerin...I don’t know if it’s because you’re back, or because all these secrets coming out is freaking him and the twins out, but he gets…” She sighed and reached for the bottle again. “Different, I guess. I don’t know, his walls come down a bit.” Another generous measure of whisky, another sip. “He’s nice to me,” she said quietly, holding the glass and looking down into it. “We ended up...I slept with him.”

Alex nodded, and Maria sighed when she glanced at him. She leaned forward, both elbows on the tiles as she pushed one hand into her hair a little, careful even now not to disturb the waves.

“So that happened,” she said to the counter before straightening up a little and running her finger around the rim. “And _then_ I found out he was your museum guy.” She let out a long breath. “This is when it gets to be both our faults. I could tell you were still into him, I knew there was something there, and I told you it had been a one-time thing that wouldn’t happen again. And I told Michael the same thing when he came in that night, and he looked…God, like a kicked dog, it was awful.” She made a face and took a quick sip of the whisky.

“I was gonna stick to my guns, I swear, but then he told me later that you were over, that any history you had was basically ancient and...well, then someone slipped me a date-rape drug and he waited with me till I woke up and that was a whole thing.” She waved a hand, casual about it in the way only Maria or Rosa ever would have been. “It’s like...I haven’t been with someone good in so long, and there’s something about Guerin that’s just...ugh, I don’t know if I should be saying this.”

“Say it,” Alex urged. “I don’t care. He isn’t even museum guy to me yet.”

“But he is,” Maria sighed. “You’re both so twisted up over each other. Anyone with eyes can see it. And you haven’t spoken to me since I started seeing him properly. So we’re both bad friends.” She toasted him bleakly and took a sip that was closer to a gulp. “But God,” she said, the glass clacking on the tile as she lowered it. “I was just so _pissed_ , y’know? Max told Liz what he was pretty much the day she got back, you figured it out on your own, and freaking _Kyle_ found out before I did. Jesus, Max’s damn police partner found out before I did!” She stood up, furious. “You were all lying to me for _months_. And I get Michael and Max and Isobel not telling me, right? I wouldn’t exactly be rushing to tell people I was an alien. It’d be like walking up to people and telling them you’re undocumented, except instead of risking being deported, you’re risking being locked up and experimented on by the government, because human rights only apply to humans.” She shook her head and looked past Alex’s head, out through the blinds. “And Guerin…Michael…he turned out to have actual hidden depths, which is never something I thought I’d say about _Guerin_ of all people, but he does. And he likes me, and he makes me laugh and feel...God, good, for the first time in what feels like forever at this point. He’s been steady, and I needed that. I really needed that.” She closed her eyes, the shaded light of Max’s house making her look regal and proud, still the most beautiful person Alex had ever known even in the future.

Alex looked at her for a long, long moment and took a deep breath. “Keep him.”

Maria’s eyes snapped back to his, eyes wide and startled. “What?”

“Keep Guerin, I don’t care.” Alex shoved down the little part of him that cried out against it and held her gaze. “I don’t. He’s just a guy, right? You’re…you’re my best friend.” Jesus, and there were the tears again, he’d give anything not to be such a fucking crybaby. “I don’t want a future where you’re not my friend.” His voice wobbled, and Maria tipped her head back, blinking back tears of her own.

“Oh my God, Alex, you can’t just say stuff like that.”

“Freaking watch me,” he said stubbornly. “I mean it. Screw Guerin. We said we’d never let boys get in the way, didn’t we? What makes him so special?” It was only a crush, he told himself. So what if Michael Guerin had been the only guy in Roswell who liked him back, who’d kissed him? He had a whole future to fill with as many guys as he wanted.

He remembered a second later with a lurch that his future had already happened, and if he’d joined the Air Force that meant his future was as devoid of eligible partners as his present. Ten whole years of no boyfriends. The future he’d been holding out for after high school never happened, and he never got anywhere.

He pushed that down as well, ignoring the swell of panic that accompanied it. Maria was more important, and she was looking at him with shining eyes and a tearful smile, and she was coming around the counter and as he stood up she hugged him tightly. Her chin hooked over his shoulder the way it always had, her arms under his, her hair close against his face and neck. “God, I missed you,” she muttered into his shoulder, and he closed his eyes and held onto her, completely failing to keep his breathing even. “Hey,” she whispered, rubbing his back. “It’s okay. We’re both idiots. It’s not our fault Guerin turned out to be a nice guy under all that cowboy bullshit.”

Alex nodded, and didn’t tell her that the Guerin he knew wasn’t a cowboy yet. “We’re okay, right?”

“We’re okay.” Maria pulled back and smiled up at him, eyes still wet. “You don’t get rid of me that easy.”

He sniffed and managed a shaky smile. “Does that mean I can have some of that whisky?”

She laughed, sudden and joyful. “Nice try, mini-Manes. Don’t think you can just bat your eyelashes at me and I’ll forget the oath I’ve sworn not to serve minors.”

“They make you swear an oath for that?”

“Oh yeah, there’s chanting and candles and everything.” She touched his face for a second, and Alex had to swallow down more tears. “How about coffee? I could use something caffeinated.”

“Sure.”

Maria nodded and ran a quick hand through his hair before going back into the kitchen. Alex watched her as he sat down again, still pushing down on the knot of panic that was steadily working its way into his throat. After a couple of seconds, he couldn’t help himself. “Maria?”

“Mmhm?” She found the mugs and started fiddling with the little coffee machine.

“Why did I leave?”

She stopped and turned to face him, brows drawn together. He could see from her expression that she didn’t know, and he looked down at his hands, still surprised to see the nails unpainted, his fingers bare.

“I never wanted to join,” he said quietly. “I let my dad think I would, but I wasn’t going to. I’d looked at colleges, remember? UNM and ENMU. And if my dad kicked me out…”

“You were gonna stay with us,” Maria finished softly. “Yeah, I remember.”

“So why’d I cave?” Alex looked at her, trying to find an answer in her face. “I was gonna be the first not to join up. And, God, the Air Force as well, just like him.” He fisted a hand in his hair. “Why’d I do that?”

“I don’t know, Alex.”

“I never told you? I never said anything?”

She shrugged awkwardly. “I think I asked about it once, but you just said it was for the best.”

“For the best?” Alex couldn’t believe it. Being different ten years in the future was one thing, he could even accept that he would one day wear collared shirts without wanting to kill himself, but deciding to join the Air Force wasn’t a distant decision, it was practically round the corner. “What happened?”

Maria shrugged again, sad. “I don’t know.”

“I’m missing something.” Alex clenched his jaw and made himself put both hands flat against the countertop. “My dad must’ve done something, said something to force me to go.” But then why had he stayed? Once he was away from Roswell, couldn’t he have dropped out and run away? He could see those questions in Maria’s eyes, and she turned away to make the coffee. 

Maybe he really was just a coward.

The shame curled in his stomach, and he glared at his unadorned hands, wondering how he ended up like this, twenty-eight years old with no friends, no boyfriend, no music, and no obvious individuality.

“Hey.”

He looked up as Maria placed an ugly brown mug of coffee in front of him and took both of his hands in hers. He hadn’t realised his eyes were teary until his vision swam, and he looked down again and blinked furiously to try and clear them away.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Maria squeezed his hands gently, and Alex gave a watery laugh.

“Is it? I ruined everything.”

“Whoa, no, no you didn’t.” Maria frowned and leaned forward. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.” Alex pulled one of his hands back to wipe his eyes. “Fuck.”

“I forgot how easily you used to cry,” she murmured, and Alex laughed again, an ugly sound.

“You mean I finally get it under control? God, can’t wait for that development.”

“I miss it.” She turned his hand over in hers and touched her fingertips to his palm. “You’re so much more guarded now. I miss the way you used to be.”

He sniffed and shook his head. “I hate it.”

“Well I don’t.” She sounded petulant, the way he knew her, and Alex managed to smile properly. “You’re perfect the way you are, you know.”

“You sound like your mom.” Alex straightened, suddenly eager. “Is Mimi okay? Does she know about the aliens and everything?” Maria looked down and let go of his hand slowly, and Alex’s heart sank. “Maria?” Fear slipped between his ribs like ice. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.” Maria patted his hand and stood up, picking up her own coffee. “Yeah. She’s just not well. She’s got something like early-onset dementia, so she already believes in aliens. Just, y’know, the Independence Day kind, not the real ones.”

Alex felt the grief like something completely new, an awful creeping realisation of how much they were losing, of how awful it had to be for Maria, and for Mimi herself. 

“It’s okay,” Maria said quietly. “She’s comfortable. She’s in an assisted living facility most of the time. She kept wandering off, I had to…I had to do something.”

Alex covered his mouth with his hand and bit down hard on the meat of his tongue, forcing back yet more useless tears. “I’m so sorry,” he managed to breathe a few seconds later.

“It’s okay, Alex.” Maria sounded heartbroken though, and he heard her take a shaky, deep breath. “Well. It’s not, it’s shit, and I hate it, but it is what it is.”

“It’s not fair.” Anger rose up and briefly eclipsed his sorrow, and Alex dug his nails into his palms. “Why _Mimi_ of all people? Why not someone like my dad? Why’d it have to be Mimi?” The only adult he’d ever completely trusted, the only adult who’d ever been truly kind to him when there was nothing to gain. The only adult he’d ever come out to, and who’d hugged him so tightly when he had and told him she was proud of him for it.

“It sucks.” Maria shook herself again and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s been worse watching it happen, slowly.”

“When did it start?”

“A few years ago.” Maria shook her head and lifted her mug to her lips. “It wasn’t so much at first, just forgetfulness, but this year’s been worse, like it’s snowballing. When she saw Liz for the first time since she got back, she kept calling her Rosa, it was awful.”

Alex reached for his own coffee and wrapped both hands around it, fingers overlapping on the hot ceramic. “Can I see her?” he asked quietly.

Maria sighed. “Probably not. She probably wouldn’t notice a difference at this point, but you shouldn’t risk being seen by people who’d notice how much younger you are.”

“And how two-limbed I am.” Alex kicked his right leg against the stool. “Figures I’d find a way to screw myself over somehow.”

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t get your leg blown off for fun,” Maria said dryly, and Alex shrugged.

“Comes to the same thing, right? Is that how it happened, then? A bomb?”

“An IED, yeah.” Maria gave him a sombre look.

“In Iraq?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.” Alex looked down at his leg, and then away to take a big gulp of coffee. 

“Yep.” Maria sighed and leaned against the counter, pulling her phone out of her pocket. It was another sleek, fancy phone, and Alex raised his eyebrows.

“You’ve got one of those too? Are they cheaper in the future?”

Maria laughed and swiped the screen before Alex could see what the background photo was. “I guess, yeah. Everyone has one.”

“Cool.”

“Kyle wants to see you,” she said, reading something on the screen.

Alex wrinkled his nose. “Really?”

“Yeah. He really wants to check you over, especially your leg.”

“Well, if he’s that desperate to get his hands on me, who am I to deny him?”

Maria snorted with laughter, and Alex grinned into his coffee. “Max’ll be back in an hour or so,” she murmured a second later. “That’ll be interesting.”

“Maybe he’ll know why I left.” Alex doubted it, but it was worth a shot. “Are we still friends, at least?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Maria shrugged. “You’ve always gotten on. Sensitive boys, both of you.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that.”

Maria grinned at him and reached over to ruffle his hair before he could duck away. “You’re so cute when you’re annoyed.”

They ended up judging Max’s library of books (too many classics on display, Alex decided instantly, with all the fun books hidden away in the spare room for some reason), and answering Alex’s slightly shallower questions, like what had happened to all his favourite bands.

“Oh my God,” he breathed, sat next to Maria on the couch as she showed him the music video for Girls/Girls/Boys. “Oh…my…God…”

“Thought you’d like that,” she smirked. “Future’s not all bad, huh?”

“Sorry, can you ask me questions again in like, five minutes?” he said, eyes fixed unblinking on her phone screen. “I’m kind of dying over here. Holy _shit._ ” The camera started panning down Brendon Urie’s extremely naked torso and Alex actually had to cover his mouth. “ _Fuck!_ ”

A bit of Googling also revealed that while his favourite band had basically fallen apart, his favourite singer had come out as pansexual since, and Alex really didn’t know how to process that without covering his face with a cushion and screaming like a small child. 

“I’m in shock,” he decided, scrolling through the Wikipedia page for My Chemical Romance. “This is insane. God, this is actually insane.”

“Wait till you hear about the new Star Wars movies,” Maria said casually, and Alex swore something cracked in his neck, he looked around at her so fast.

“What?”

“Yeah, and the Star Trek reboot movies.”

“ _What?_ That turned out to be good?”

They watched the trailers for all of them except the 2009 Star Trek film, which Alex had seen plenty of times already. He gripped his elbows so hard when they watched the first teaser for The Force Awakens that his hands shook, and Maria nudged him, laughing. “I forgot how into this you used to be.”

“Do I not care anymore?” It came out much more upset than Alex had meant, but he couldn’t help it. The idea of not caring about his favourite music, about Star Wars, about anything interesting was unbearable. 

“I think you’re just better at hiding it,” Maria said, wrapping an arm around him. She wasn’t tall enough to drape it over his shoulders, but he leaned into her anyway. 

“Maybe I did get it all beaten out of me,” Alex said bitterly. “Just like he wanted.”

She snorted. “Nah, you’re still you. Just…mm, more strategic, maybe. And you’re definitely still a little shit.”

“Thanks?”

“Trust me, that’s a compliment.” She squeezed him. “You’re still the first with a comeback to literally everything, and you can still destroy someone in like, a sentence.”

Alex breathed out, mollified. “I guess that’s something.”

“Yeah, if anything you’re even better at it because you don’t get so easily flustered. And you’re crazy smart too.”

“Well. Duh.”

Maria pinched him, and they both snickered. “Asshole. No, I mean like you have a super high security clearance and stuff, you do all sorts of computer coding stuff, like a hacker or whatever.”

“I do?” Alex absorbed that, sitting up and blinking. “Cool.”

“Oh! And you outrank your dad!”

“I _do?_ ” Alex gaped at her. “Seriously? What am I?”

“Captain.” She grinned at whatever his face did in response to that, and he looked down at his knees, eyes wide.

“Wow. And he’s…”

“Chief Master Sergeant.”

Alex breathed out slowly. “Wow. That’s…” He didn’t even know what to say to that. He couldn’t imagine outranking his father. It was strange, hating the idea of joining the Air Force but knowing he’d apparently been so good at it he’d been promoted to _Captain_. “Wow.”

“Yeah. You don’t live on the base or anything though, you’ve got a cabin outside town.”

“Shit.”

“What?”

Alex frowned and pulled the phone that belonged to future-him out of his pocket. “What if I’m meant to be doing stuff right now? Do you know my schedule? Like, is this a day off for me, or…?”

Maria shrugged apologetically. “You’re not in uniform, so I guess?”

“What if they don’t fix this for ages?” Alex pressed the home button and watched the screen light up. The date and time glowed, superimposed over a plain black background. “Someone’ll check up on me, if I have work to do and stuff like that. And I won’t have any idea how to do it, or who any of the other airmen are, if they know me.”

Maria sighed. “We’ll figure it out, Alex.”

“What if you don’t? What if I’m stuck here like this?” Alex looked at her, panicking a bit. “I haven’t even graduated yet, there’s no way I can impersonate a Captain!”

They both looked up at the sound of an approaching car, and Alex swallowed as a large black truck pulled up outside, lights sweeping the porch. Alex hadn’t even noticed how dark it was outside. “That’s Max, right?”

“Yeah.” Maria patted his back and stood up, so he got to his feet as well, weirdly nervous. Max had always been nice to him, and Liz clearly adored him, so there wasn’t any reason to be nervous, but he still bit his lip as he watched a man in uniform climb out of the truck, white cowboy hat in his hand, holster at his hip. He looked a lot like Jim Valenti, but when he turned around and approached the house, Alex could see Max clearly underneath the outfit.

“Hey.” Max walked in and hung his hat on a hook by the door, cocking his head as he looked at them. “You’re really seventeen again, huh? Rather you than me.”

It was so blasé that Alex laughed. “What, you don’t miss your baseball caps and baggy t-shirts?”

Maria cackled. “Oh, I forgot you used to wear those! I don’t think I saw you without a hat for like, ten years.”

Max gave her a wounded look, settling his weight onto one leg, hands on his hips. The picture of authority, a real deputy, and Alex shook his head to see it. “Man, you really became a cop.”

Max raised his eyebrows. “It’s that surprising?”

“I don’t know.” Alex shrugged, nervous again. Max sounded different, so much more like a man than a boy. He looked like he could lay a guy out with a single punch and go for a beer afterwards. “A bit, I guess. I thought you might end up as a teacher or something.”

Max smiled, and even that was different. Smaller, slower, less goofy than the Max Alex knew. “I thought about it,” he said. “But I wanted to learn how to protect people. If I hadn’t gotten into the academy, I would’ve tried being a teacher. I was never as smart as you though, I don’t know if I would’ve made it.”

Alex frowned at him, and then looked pointedly around at the library Max had created in his home. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said sarcastically. “You’ve definitely been letting your brain atrophy. What, do you read one book a week instead of three these days?”

Maria snorted, and Max let out a surprised bark of laughter. “I haven’t read as much as I’d like lately,” he smiled. “Where are you at in your timeline? Liz said it was before graduation. Have we done that big English exam yet?”

“Yeah, last week.” Alex stared at him, still trying to see his Max under the adult in front of him. “You freaked out about it, but we all knew you’d ace it. You know Frankenstein backwards. I mean, you did then.”

“It’s still one of my favourites.” Max smiled and came closer, looking at his desk and running his hand down one of the piles of books there until he pulled a thin, familiar volume out. “Same copy. I like the notes.”

“God.” Alex took it from him when he held it out and flipped through it slowly. “This is so weird. I saw you with this last week.” It had been so much cleaner, the spine still intact. This book had pages that were coming loose, and the pencil and pen scribbles were a little faded. The corners had gone soft, and a tiny bit of dust trickled out to rub against Alex’s fingertips. Strangely, seeing his friends grown up was less weird than seeing the obvious marks of time on Max’s copy of Frankenstein. It really had been eleven years. Overnight, an entire decade had passed.

Alex swallowed and handed the book back to Max. “Do you know why I joined the Air Force?”

Max raised his eyebrows. “Uh…should I?”

Alex’s shoulders slumped. “No, I guess not. I just can’t figure out why I did it.”

“You didn’t plan on it,” Max said, like he was remembering it. “You wanted to be in a band.”

“Or something,” Alex said. “Yeah. Or like, go to a real college at least.” He frowned, glancing at Maria quickly. “Or stay with Maria, if I couldn’t figure anything out in time. Anything but the military.”

Max frowned too, and walked around him slowly. He unbuckled his holster and placed it carefully on the kitchen counter before turning around. “When did you leave? It was soon after Rosa died, right?”

Alex shrugged helplessly, but Maria said, “Yeah, not long after the funeral.”

Max’s frown was a heavy thing on his grown-up body. “Have you talked to Michael at all?”

“A bit.” Alex looked over at Maria, but she didn’t look mad. “He seemed kinda…I don’t know, he said he didn’t have time to talk about stuff, because I’ll kick his ass if he doesn’t fix this quickly. Like, future me will, I mean.”

Max looked at Maria for a long moment, and Alex couldn’t decipher the silent conversation they seemed to be having. Usually he called people out on doing that, but Guerin was clearly a topic everyone was twitchy over. “You should talk to him,” Max said eventually, meeting his eyes again, and it was such a non-answer that Alex glared at him. 

“You know why I left, don’t you?”

Max sighed. “Yeah, I think so.”

“So…?”

“It’s not my business.” Max shook his head. “It’s between you and Michael, and he wouldn’t appreciate me sticking my nose in.”

“Well don’t I get a say?” Alex demanded, but while the Max he knew could be cajoled into pretty much anything, this Max stood firm.

“It hasn’t happened for you yet,” he said. “So Michael comes first. Sorry, man.”

Alex looked away, digging his nails into his palms with frustration. “It’s my life,” he muttered.

“Not yet.” Calm and solid, Max turned his attention to Maria. “You wanna stay for dinner? I’ve got some leftover pasta if you’re hungry.”

Maria smirked. “I don’t know, do you? Liz grabbed a lot of it for lunch.”

“Aw, really?” Max’s dismay was so familiar that Alex couldn’t help the way his lips twitched to hear it. “I’ve been thinking about that pasta all day.” He checked the fridge and sighed. “I guess I’m cooking then. Offer still stands,” he added, looking at Maria again. She pursed her lips and checked her phone for the time.

“I guess I could stay,” she said, sending Alex a quick look that let him know that she knew he didn’t want her to go. It was embarrassing, but Maria had always been able to read him like a book. And Alex didn’t want to be alone with this unfamiliar, adult Max. He would have been completely fine with the Max he knew, but this one looked and sounded so much like the kind of man Alex had always avoided and disliked that it was throwing him off.

He and Maria sat at the kitchen counter together while Max made a casserole, shoulders pressed together like they were in class, leaning close to share the same book or pass notes. Max wouldn’t let either of them help, and seemed perfectly happy to follow the recipe on his phone. It was bizarre, watching him putter around his tiny kitchen and chat to Maria about things that went over Alex’s head. They switched between that and answering Alex’s questions about the future, and slowly Max loosened up until he was laughing. It wasn’t quite the same as his laugh when he’d been Alex’s age, but it was similar enough.

He was still too adult to not be intimidating on some level, but Alex wasn’t anywhere near as on edge by the time they ate, sitting on the couch because the little kitchen counter wasn’t really big enough for two people to eat at, let alone three. Especially when Max’s stupidly broad shoulders were taken into account. 

“I swear you aren’t this bulky in school,” Alex muttered, settling at the end of the sofa, Maria between him and Max.

“You calling me fat?” Max grinned, and Alex rolled his eyes.

“Shut up.”

“Kyle’s coming over,” Maria told them, checking her phone again. “He just finished at the hospital.”

Max shrugged. “Tell him there’s food if he wants it.”

That hadn’t changed, at least. Max always shared his food indiscriminately, offering it to anyone who so much as glanced in his direction. Alex smiled into his bowl and ate quickly, wanting to be done by the time Kyle got there.

It was over half an hour before Kyle arrived, and Max had stubbornly argued both Alex and Maria out of doing the washing up, because apparently under all the gruff cop exterior he was still the same in the ways that mattered. Alex twisted around on the kitchen stool when light flooded briefly through the gaps in the blinds behind him, and got to his feet at the sound of a car crunching over the dirt outside.

“That’ll be Kyle.” Maria nudged him. “Relax, Alex.”

“Should’ve let me have some of that whisky if you wanted me relaxed,” Alex muttered. For everyone else it might have been a decade ago, but he’d been called a cocksucker in class by one of Kyle’s friends yesterday, and Kyle had snickered and made gross slurping sounds at him in the cafeteria afterwards to make everyone else laugh too.

The idea that Kyle Valenti had grown up into a decent human being was honestly less believable than Max being an alien, but Alex was willing to suspend his disbelief for Maria and Max’s sake.

“Jesus,” Alex muttered when Kyle came in, his eyes already wide. “Is stubble mandatory for men in the future?”

Maria pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh, and Kyle just stared at him. He did look like less of an asshole at first glance, but maybe that was just the influence of the adult clothes. He was still irritatingly fit too. Alex had always hoped he’d decline after high school, but he’d obviously kept himself in good shape. 

Kyle gave him a slow once-over. “Your leg?”

Alex lifted it and wiggled his ankle. “All attached.”

“Holy shit.” Kyle took a deep breath. “Wow, okay. Uh, do you mind if I give you a quick check-up?”

“I guess not.” Alex eyed him as he came closer and had to force himself not to lean away when Kyle was close enough to touch him. 

“Any adverse effects from whatever this is?” Kyle asked, getting a torch out of his pocket and lifting it questioningly. “Memory loss, confusion? Any unusual pain?”

“Uh…” Alex held himself deathly still but still couldn’t help wincing when Kyle turned the torch on. “Headache, when I woke up. My eyes hurt.”

“You on any medication at seventeen I don’t know about?”

“No?” Unless painkillers counted, but Alex didn’t think they did. His eyes stung and watered after the examination, but Kyle did put the torch away looking satisfied. 

“What’s the last thing you ate?”

“Casserole.” Alex glanced at Max and Maria. “Like, ten minutes ago.”

“Good. Appetite’s the same? No nausea?”

“No.”

“Bowel movements still normal?”

Alex scowled at him. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Kyle shook his head and looked away for a moment. “Okay. Sit down, I want to see your leg.”

Alex perched on the kitchen stool and held onto it as Kyle knelt in front of him and pulled Alex’s right foot onto his thigh. He couldn’t remember the last time Kyle had touched him in a way that wasn’t violent, and he gripped the sides of the stool so tight his knuckles creaked. Kyle moved his ankle, checked in with him before removing his shoe and sock to examine his toes. He even did a knee-jerk test with the side of his hand instead of a little hammer.

“Wow,” he said eventually, letting go of Alex’s leg and staring at it. “There’s nothing else I can really do without taking you to the hospital to be absolutely sure you’re okay. Maybe tomorrow, if Michael and Liz haven’t figured out how to reverse it.” Kyle looked up at him like he was waiting for a response, and when Alex just stared at him, he frowned. “Alex?”

“You…” Alex had no idea what to say, but Kyle drew back anyway and stood to lean against the arm of the couch behind him. “This is weird,” he muttered, a lame explanation. He bent to yank on his sock and shoe again.

Kyle snorted, and that at least sounded more like him. “I’ll bet. Look…” He glanced at Max and Maria and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, I was a dick to you in high school, and I’m sorry.”

Alex had absolutely no idea how to process that, and ended up asking, “Was it you or Wayne who stuck the porn on my locker?” instead of anything even remotely intelligent. Still, it was kind of worth it for the way Kyle winced, looking genuinely ashamed of himself.

“Uh, technically me, but it was his idea.” 

“Jesus, Kyle,” Maria sounded disgusted, and Kyle sighed.

“Yeah, believe me, I know.” He looked at Alex again. “I mean it though. I shouldn’t’ve dropped you after eighth grade. I was a shitty friend, and you deserved better. And, um.” He shifted uncomfortably. “It hasn’t happened for you yet, but I hit you at prom, and I’m sorry for that too.”

Alex blinked, trying to focus on what Kyle had said rather than the savage vindication of having it confirmed that Kyle and Wayne had been the ones to glue gay porn all over the outside of his locker. With no proof of a perpetrator, he’d had to scrape it off himself, and endure the taunts and jibes that had followed since. He managed to push that to one side and set his jaw. “Did I hit you back, at least?”

Kyle’s lips quirked. “Yeah. Really hard. And then Liz broke up with me, so.” He shrugged.

“On prom night?”

“Pretty much.”

Alex nodded slowly. “Yeah, that does help.” He shook his head, playing up his disgust a little. “God, I can’t believe you actually became a doctor.”

“Is that bad?” Kyle grinned, crooked and irritatingly handsome as always.

“I kinda hoped you’d drink yourself into an early grave or something, to be honest.” Alex shrugged a shoulder. “I guess your dad must be proud though.”

Kyle’s smile vanished, and over his shoulder Alex saw Maria wince and Max turn away to hide some sort of expression of his own. He knew before Kyle even opened his mouth what he was going to say. “My dad died, actually.” Kyle looked down at his hands. “A while ago.”

Mimi had dementia and Jim Valenti was dead. Alex slumped against the counter behind him and closed his eyes for a second. Jim had been nice to him. Not in a particularly effective way, especially after his own dad had figured out he was gay and Jim’s clumsy attempts at intervening had caused more harm than good, but he had tried. 

“He left you his cabin,” Kyle said, and Alex looked up at him in surprise.

“He did? Why?”

Kyle shrugged. “He liked you.”

Alex looked away and breathed out slowly. He wasn’t going to cry, but he still couldn’t bring himself to meet anyone’s eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, addressing Kyle’s knees. “Was it...what happened?”

Kyle crossed his arms. “Short version: cancer. Long version: cancer caused by an alien, when your dad locked mine in a cage with it.”

Alex’s heart seized. No one said anything, none of them contradicted it, and the silence was awful. It was one thing to know his dad was capable of violence and to suspect he could commit murder, but having it confirmed was different. Even knowing his dad had tried to kill Kyle was different, because he hadn’t succeeded. It was warm in Max’s house, especially by the kitchen, but Alex felt so cold he could have shivered.

“My dad…” He had to pause to swallow, to clear his throat. “My dad _killed_ your dad?”

Kyle looked over at Maria and Max. “No one told him anything about Caulfield? Jesus, you guys suck.”

“I thought Liz caught him up,” Max muttered, and Alex realised that the expression on his face was guilt. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”

Alex took a deep breath, then another. “What’s Caulfield?”

The looks the three of them exchanged made him feel very young.

Kyle ended up telling him, since he was the only one of them who’d actually been there. Alex stood up when he finished and muttered something about needing the bathroom. It was a deep, deep relief to lock himself in a room where no one could look at him. He put the toilet lid down and sat on it, and after a second put his head between his knees.

His father had murdered so many people. Jim Valenti was only the start. Alex didn’t understand how Kyle could bear to be in the same room as him, knowing what his father had done. 

And he was going to grow up to be just like that. A proper airman, following in his brothers’ footsteps, and his father’s footsteps, and his grandfather’s footsteps. Generations of men walking ahead of him, carving a path he couldn’t escape from.

Alex was well-practiced at the art of silent crying, but he still tried to choke it back, knowing how obvious it would be to the others if he emerged with swollen eyes. 

His father had murdered Michael’s mother. At this point, Alex wouldn’t have been surprised at all to learn that he’d also somehow given Mimi her dementia.

Michael Guerin had been abandoned by pretty much everyone in his life, left behind in foster care when Max and Isobel had been adopted, sleeping in his truck by the end of high school. He’d probably given up on ever finding any family beyond the Evans twins, but his mother had been imprisoned mere miles outside of Roswell the whole time, and now she was dead, and it was Alex’s fault. No wonder Michael wanted Maria. It was a miracle Max and Isobel didn’t hate Alex’s guts too. What if their parents had been in Caulfield as well? 

The inevitability of the future was crushing. 

Alex pulled his future self’s phone out of his pocket with a shaking hand and checked the time. He gave himself two more minutes of crying, which would give him five to splash cold water on his eyes to bring the redness down a bit. Less than ten minutes in the bathroom total, which was an acceptable length of time.

He’d had lots of practice stuffing his overflowing emotions back into their boxes too, and he knew that he would need more time to compose himself than he needed to let some of those emotions out now. It was always harder to stop once he’d started, but once those two minutes were up he shoved himself to his feet and went to the sink, forcing himself to meet the eyes of his reflection to assess the damage.

They were as red and swollen as he’d expected, and his cheeks were a little blotchy too. Looking at himself made the lump in his throat ache again, and he lowered his gaze quickly. He filled the sink with cold water and held his breath before lowering his face into it, keeping his eyes closed and his hand on the crown of his head, keeping his hair pulled back. He counted out thirty seconds before lifting his head and pulling the towel from the hook next to the sink, dabbing his face dry enough that it wouldn’t drip when he stood up properly.

The routine was familiar, and oddly steadying. He couldn’t do anything about the future, but he knew how to make it look like he hadn’t been crying. He dipped his face twice more before draining the sink and drying his face properly, and left everything exactly as he’d found it as he walked out, his five minutes up.

They were all still there, Kyle and Maria on the couch and Max in an armchair, muttering together. They stopped when he appeared in the doorway, and Maria got to her feet. “Hey. You okay?”

Alex opened his mouth to lie, then closed it again and shook his head. He looked at Kyle, who gazed back at him with an inscrutable expression. “You put my dad in a coma, right?”

Kyle raised his eyebrows. “Yeah.”

“Are you going to keep him like that?”

Kyle’s lips twisted. “I don’t know. I’m still talking to present-day you about it. You agreed it was safest for now, but it’s really risky for me. If he wakes up and tells people what I did, my career is over.”

Future him cared about Kyle’s career. Weirdly, Alex did now as well. Kyle’s apology mattered less than knowing that he’d been the one to take his dad down. It satisfied something in Alex that wanted to see his father suffer for what he’d put so many people through.

“I should kill him,” he said, and Max and Kyle stood up.

“Whoa, let’s not –”

“Slow down, Alex –”

“Oh my God, not like, right now,” Alex cut across them, rolling his eyes. “I mean when you get future me back, if that happens. It’s too risky, keeping him alive.”

“Let’s leave that decision for another day,” Maria said before anyone else could say anything. She stepped closer and waited for Alex to look at her before she touched his arm. “It isn’t your responsibility right now.”

“He’s my father.” Alex curled his toes in his ugly shoes, tense where no one would see. “He’s always going to be my responsibility.” His responsibility and his fault, his brain whispered in a distant, panicky drumbeat. His fault. His fault.

“Not today.” Maria squeezed his arm and slid her hand down to wrap it around his. “Okay?”

Something pinged, and Alex jerked around. Just Max’s phone, he realised, and apparently Kyle’s as well, because they were both checking them.

“They’ve figured it out,” Max said, relieved. “Liz says they’ve reverse-engineered whatever happened earlier, and they’re pretty sure they can get Alex back to normal as soon as he’s there.”

“I’ll take you,” Maria said immediately, squeezing his hand, and Alex nodded.

“I’m coming too,” Kyle said, and looked at Max. “And so should you.”

“Why?” Alex asked, frowning. “It wasn’t a big deal the first time round.”

“The first time round you regrew a limb,” Kyle said flatly. “This time you’re going to lose one. Probably, anyway, who the hell knows how this alien tech works?” He sighed. “Point is, there’s a reason those sorts of injuries are called traumatic. I’m not happy with the idea of you doing this without someone on hand who knows more than the average joe about said injuries.” He gestured to himself, and then Max. “And someone who can heal you if something goes wrong.”

Alex was too tired to argue it, so just flapped a hand. “Fine. Can we go then?”

Maria let go of his hand to get her jacket from where it was draped over the back of the couch, and they headed out together, Kyle and Max at their heels. They all took their separate cars, and Alex couldn’t bring himself to comment on the wastefulness of it, just glad that it would only be him and Maria on the way there.

“Let’s get nostalgic,” she said as soon as they were buckled in. Her eyes were gleaming as she found whatever she was looking for on her phone, and Alex couldn’t help but laugh when the first chords of _We’re So Starving_ emerged from the speakers.

“Seriously?”

“I remember how snobby you were about this album,” she said, smug as anything as she pulled out of Max’s drive, behind Max and ahead of Kyle. The sun had set, but the sky was still a dusky blue, not yet fully dark. “Whining and whining about how they’d betrayed their roots, how their sound had no integrity anymore…”

“Ugh, that was weeks ago!”

“Years, for me,” Maria smirked. “And I remember it like yesterday, that’s how annoying you were about it.”

He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help grinning too. It had taken him a while to come round to _Pretty. Odd._ , but Maria’s insistence that the songs were amazing had definitely helped. He still preferred _A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out_ , but _Pretty. Odd._ had grown on him. 

It was weird as hell to think that there were four more albums he hadn’t listened to yet, but he started singing along with Maria anyway. 

How long had it been for her since they’d done this? They were always the ones hanging out in the music room while Liz studied, the two of them pretending to be rock stars and singing tune after tune, figuring out how to harmonise and accompanying themselves on the guitar and music room piano. The music room had been taken over by students prepping for their exams, so for Alex it had been a couple of weeks or so, but for Maria it had probably been years. If the music rooms were booked up till graduation, maybe they would never do it again.

But Maria still knew all the words. And she grinned at him when _Northern Downpour_ came on, apparently remembering that it had been the first song he’d admitted to liking on the album.

He wondered if he still liked it when he was grown up.

 _She Had The World_ came around eventually, and Alex rolled his head to look at Maria. “Is this still your favourite?”

“On the album? Yeah, probably.” She smiled. “It’s the flutes.”

Alex snorted and shook his head, but still harmonised with her. They arrived before the song ended, but Maria sat there with the engine on and held up a hand when Kyle came over to the window. She and Alex grinned at each other and kept singing until the song was over. Never leave a song unfinished, they’d always agreed on that, and Alex tried to hold onto the sharp joy of her smile as he finally got out of the car.

It slipped away from him as they all made their way up the slope to the cave entrance, and Alex’s stomach churned. Someone had set up some candles in the cave, and between them and the glowing alien pods, Alex could see Guerin moving around behind them, determinedly not looking in their direction. Liz had no such reservations, and came over to kiss Max’s cheek.

Isobel Evans was there, and she approached Alex slowly like he was a wild animal, or a curiosity she wanted to understand. Alex had to fight against a momentary instinct to move closer to Maria. Were he and Isobel Evans friends now? Liz hadn’t mentioned it if they were, but to be fair she’d also forgotten to tell him about his father running an alien prison. 

“You’re really seventeen again?” Isobel asked, giving him a look he couldn’t read.

Alex nodded, standing his ground as she took another step closer.

“Hm. Okay, this might be a weird question, but what was I like in high school?”

Alex blinked. “Um. I don’t know, we didn’t really hang out. Or talk.”

“You were friends with Max though,” Isobel said, tilting her head.

“Yeah, I guess, but not…I mean, not like I was friends with Maria and Liz.” Alex glanced at Maria, who shrugged a shoulder, apparently as confused by the line of questioning as he was.

Isobel frowned. “They told you I was basically being possessed regularly in high school, right?”

“Liz…yeah.” Alex looked over at her, but she was murmuring something to Max and Michael.

“So, I’m not entirely sure what I was like, especially that year.” Isobel drew herself up and gave him a chilly smile. “Your memories are all fresh right now. I kind of hoped you might have some insight the rest of us have probably lost.”

Alex didn’t know what to say. He looked around and shrugged apologetically. “I don’t really know what you mean.”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes for a second, gathering patience, and it was such an adult thing to do that Alex felt wrong-footed all over again. She didn’t look that different, really. Her bangs were gone, and her style had evolved. She’d grown up like Liz had, seeming basically the same except for the way she dressed and spoke. “Okay,” she muttered again, opening her eyes. “Did you ever see me with Rosa Ortecho? You were friends with her too, right? Through Liz?”

“Yeah.” Alex risked another glance over at Liz, but her attention was still on Michael and Max, and now Kyle as well. “I never saw you with her. She never mentioned you. I mean, she was closer to Maria than me,” he added, deliberately not looking at Maria and keeping the familiar, bruise-like sting of that pushed down as far as he could. “We never really talked to each other on our own.”

“Okay.” Isobel pursed her lips. “Did you and I ever talk?”

Alex snorted. “No.” She looked surprised by his reaction, so he went on, amused. “Isobel Evans, associate with the likes of me? I don’t think so.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “I…was I mean to you? I can’t really remember. I don’t know if that’s because I was blacked out half the time or if my memory really is that bad. Fun stuff to take to my imaginary therapist.” She rolled her eyes, and Alex shifted his weight, suddenly sorry for her.

“You aren’t a dick to me like Valenti or anything. You just don’t care.” He shrugged. “Why would you? We aren’t friends, we don’t really know each other. I don’t, like, resent you or anything. Apart from the evil alien husband, it looks like things turned out okay for you.” He gestured to her sharp outfit, her perfect lipstick, her obviously expensive jewellery. “I only ever really see you when you’re with Max or Michael.”

“How was I with them?” she asked curiously. Maria must have given her some sort of look, because Isobel made a face at her. “I want an outside perspective.”

“What are we?” Maria asked dryly. “Statues?”

“Old,” Isobel said, sharp and bright. “Short of going back in time myself or rooting through people’s memories, this is as good to a primary source as I’m going to get. So,” she looked at Alex again. “What was I like with my brothers?”

Alex was aware that the others were listening in now, but he tried to think. “I don’t know. Friendlier, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“You weren’t a bitch with them?” he said, a little annoyed by the probing. “I don’t know, the last time I saw you was probably…I don’t know, Tuesday? You and Max came in at the same time, and he and I have English together on Tuesdays. You didn’t talk to me.”

“You never saw me at the Crashdown or whatever?” she pushed. “I remember going there a lot, or…I guess I think I do.” The flicker of discomfort in her expression eased Alex’s tension. She’d lost a load of memories, he reminded himself. This was probably like if he’d needed to ask Kyle about their childhood friendship, while remembering only flashes of it himself.

“You hung out there with Max,” he said slowly, trying to adjust to the past tense. “And Michael. I – we,” he corrected, looking at Maria, “we’d go there after school, and sometimes you guys would be there too. You’re nicer when you’re just with them, but you don’t really like us either. Didn’t.” He sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair, part of him surprised at how soft it was with no product in it to spike it up. “We kind of stayed separate, different booths. Max came over sometimes if we were doing the same homework, but only if Liz wasn’t there.” 

Maria laughed, and Alex looked at Max in sudden apology, eyes wide. Max grinned though, waving a hand.

“Ancient history, man, don’t worry about it.”

Alex supposed Liz would already be aware of Max’s epic high school era crush on her at this point, but it was still awkward.

“This is all very touching,” Guerin said, as if keyed into his thoughts, “but we should probably get on aging him up again, don’t you think? It’s been hours, and we don’t know what the long-term effects of this could be.”

“Do you have any more questions?” Maria asked Isobel, surprisingly gentle, and Isobel sighed.

“I guess not. I don’t remember us being close either.”

“We aren’t. Weren’t.” Alex shrugged. “Are we now?”

Isobel tilted her head. “Not really. But it’s hard to avoid intimacy when you share so many secrets.” She gestured around her, to the cave and the pods and everyone else standing within earshot. “There isn’t anyone else we can talk to outside here. No one else knows the real reason Noah disappeared, or how Rosa died, or about Liz getting shot, and Michael’s hand –”

“Yeah, we’re a treasure trove of secrets,” Guerin interrupted, rolling his eyes. “Can we get on with this? It’s been a long day.”

Alex couldn’t see anything wrong with Guerin’s hands. It niggled at him, the way Guerin had cut Isobel short, and Max’s words from earlier were suddenly at the forefront of his mind. “Before we do,” he said quickly, looking over at Guerin. “Can I talk to you? Real quick. Alone,” he added, deeply uncomfortable for some reason with the idea of asking Guerin anything personal in front of an audience.

“What part of ‘long day’ did I mispronounce?” Guerin asked sarcastically, and Alex held his breath through the unexpected stab of hurt that gave him. Max put his arm on Guerin’s arm though, and leaned close to murmur something.

“I still have one question,” Alex said, trying to sound calm rather than antagonistic. He always got angry too easily, Maria and Liz were always saying so. “You owe me.”

Guerin looked like he wanted to argue, but after a second he set his jaw and shook Max’s hand off. “Fine. Come on then.” He stalked outside, and Alex took a quick breath before following, ignoring everyone else. He didn’t want to see whatever expressions were on their faces.

Guerin had liked him once. Even before he’d apparently kissed him, they’d been friendly. Hell, they’d been friendly this week. Alex had seen him in the hall between classes on Friday and they’d exchanged nods. Guerin had cooled off a little since Alex had told him about the tool shed, but if he ended up using it that clearly hadn’t lasted.

It was dark and cold outside, a few pale clouds high up in the sky, hanging like wisps of smoke in front of the huge New Mexico sky. Guerin tilted his head up to look at the stars, and Alex remembered all over again that he was an alien. He’d literally come from another planet. It somehow made more sense for Guerin to be an alien than Max or Isobel, who’d always seemed so normal. Guerin had always been different.

“Okay.” Guerin dropped his head and looked at him. “One question. Go.”

Alex looked behind him and judged that they were far enough from the cave mouth not to be overheard unless everyone inside was actively eavesdropping. And he trusted Liz and Maria to stop them doing that. He still took a couple of steps closer, just to be sure, and made himself meet Guerin’s eyes. “Do you know why I joined the Air Force?”

Guerin blinked, turned his head to the side, and took half a shuffling step back. “Should I?”

Alex wanted to hit him. “I don’t know!” he snapped, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. “No one else seems to know, and I know you kiss me in the future, so I thought maybe I told you! I didn’t tell anyone, Maria and Liz don’t know, _I_ don’t know. I was going to be the first in my family not to join some branch of the military, but that obviously didn’t happen, so something must have changed.”

“You know…” Guerin looked away, jaw clenching. “Who told you?”

About the kiss, Alex realised, and his anger rose on another wave. “Why the hell does it matter? You clearly hate me in the future, you picked Maria.”

“I don’t hate you, Alex.” Guerin looked back at him, and Alex’s anger fizzled out at how sad he seemed. Like the idea of hating Alex hurt him more than anything else. “I’ve never hated you.”

Alex didn’t even know where to start with that. “You do a great impression of it,” he said eventually. Guerin sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, and Alex asked before he could help himself, “What did Isobel mean about your hand?”

“Fuck.” Guerin dropped his hand and looked at it, flexing the fingers slowly. “Max healed it,” he said quietly. “Recently.”

“What happened?”

Guerin gave him a long look. Alex had been fielding looks he didn’t understand all day long, from older faces than he was used to, but this was the worst. Guerin looked so much older than the boy Alex had nodded to on Friday. Old and tired and hurt. Lashing out because he was reacting violently to the potential of pain, Alex realised, remembering that Maria had told him he did that himself. He’d been pissed at her for saying it at the time, but he recognised it now in Michael Guerin.

“How much did Maria tell you?” Guerin asked, voice so low Alex barely caught the words.

Alex pulled the jacket he was wearing closer around himself and shoved his hands in the pockets. “She said you kiss me, in my future. In the UFO Emporium.”

“Anything else?”

Alex shook his head. “She said it happened the day Rosa died, and I never told her who it was. Until, I don’t know, now, I guess.”

Guerin’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips, his left hand still flexing slightly. “We went back to yours, that night. To the shed.”

Alex’s stomach swooped. “Did we…”

“Yeah.” Guerin looked down. “And afterwards, your dad caught us.”

Alex froze, his whole body seizing up in mute horror. Guerin looked at him, but Alex couldn’t look back. This was why he’d joined the Air Force. He’d suspected it would have something to do with his dad, but of all the scenarios, this was the worst. Caught with a boy under his father’s roof… “What happened?” he heard himself ask. He barely recognised his own voice.

Guerin didn’t answer immediately, but Alex still couldn’t bring himself to look directly at him, his gaze fixed somewhere around Guerin’s knees. “He got a hammer,” Guerin said, very quietly. “He pinned you, I don’t know what he was going to do. I tried…I tried to stop him, he was hurting you, but he grabbed me and…”

“Your hand,” Alex realised, feeling sick to his stomach. 

“Yeah.”

Alex couldn’t imagine it. How bad it must have been – how bad it was going to be. “You,” he started, trying to make sense of his immediate and distant futures at the same time. “Max…he healed you, right?”

“Yeah.” Guerin didn’t sound happy about it. “Not long ago.”

“But…how long, how long is not long ago?” Alex asked, fighting to keep his voice level and quiet.

“I couldn’t let him at the time,” Guerin said harshly. “You and your dad were witnesses, what would you have said if I’d showed up the next day with my hand fully intact?”

 _Fully intact._ Alex clenched his fists in his pockets at that phrasing. “How bad was it?”

Guerin sighed, and Alex saw him examine his left hand again. “Knuckles on my pinkie and ring finger were basically fucked. Couldn’t bend them properly. Couldn’t go to a hospital, and I didn’t know what I was doing, so they never set right. The scarring was pretty bad too.”

No wonder Guerin didn’t like him anymore. Alex imagined his father bringing down a hammer on his own hand and knew there was no way he could comprehend how much it must have hurt. To have the bones of his fingers literally crushed like that would be agony. To have to go through the healing process on his own, without any help from anyone, would have taken months. 

Alex swallowed and made himself ask. “How many times did he…” 

“Hit me? Four.” Guerin dropped his hand and curled it into a fist. “You tried to pull him off me, but he knocked you flat and dragged you out. He said if he ever saw me on his property again, he’d kill me.” He paused. “I should’ve…I don’t know, I wanted to do something, I knew he was gonna hurt you, but…it doesn’t matter now anyway,” he said abruptly. “It’s done, it’s over.”

“Not for me.” Alex wanted to cry. The one boy who’d ever liked him back, his first kiss, first…everything, it sounded like, and he’d paid Guerin back by getting his hand wrecked and his life threatened. “If this sends me back in time,” he said, speaking quickly so his voice wouldn’t break, “if that’s how this works, I’ll fix things. I’ll change everything, I’ll make sure that never happens, and Rosa will live, and I’ll never join the Air Force.”

Guerin sighed. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“It might!” Alex took a step back, embarrassed by how upset he sounded. “It might,” he repeated, quieter. “Let’s see, right? You never know.”

“Sure.” Guerin sighed again. “We done now? Wanna go back inside and get back to normal?”

His dislike hurt even more now that Alex knew he had such a good reason for it. “Yeah,” he muttered, turning around to go back into the cave. “Sure.”

“Look,” Isobel was saying as they went in. “I might not know him that well, but I’m pretty sure he won’t want to wake up surrounded by everyone staring at him like some sort of lab experiment. Back me up on this,” she said as soon as she saw Alex. “Do you want us all here for this, or not?”

“Uh…” Alex looked at Liz and Maria, then at everyone else. “Not really.”

“See?” Isobel gave Kyle a triumphant look.

“We’ll be right outside then,” Kyle said, stubborn. “If he’s going to lose a leg all over again, there’s no telling what that’ll do. What if the wound regresses?”

“We’ll shout for you,” Liz said firmly. “For now though, just me and Michael.”

Alex felt a stab of panic and looked at Maria. “Wait, can you stay too?”

She blinked, then smiled like she was surprised to be asked. “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

“The rest of us will be outside,” Isobel said, taking Max’s arm and tugging him in the direction of the cave entrance. Kyle followed, throwing a worried look over his shoulder as he went, but then Alex was left with Guerin, Liz, and Maria.

“Okay,” he said, trying to sound confident. “What do I do?”

“Come here.” Guerin gestured and pointed to the pod at the end. “Just put your hand right here.” He pointed to a spot indistinguishable from the rest of the surface, and Alex frowned.

“That’s it?”

“Yup.” Guerin snorted. “Took us all day to figure it out, but that’s literally it.”

“Okay.” Alex had to kneel down to be able to press his palm flat against the pod, and he hesitated before he did it, not sure where to touch. “I don’t –”

“Here.” Guerin took his hand, and a jolt went through Alex’s entire body. Guerin’s skin was warm and smooth, and gentle as he guided Alex’s hand down and tilted it to be ready, his palm against the back of Alex’s hand, their knuckles aligned. Alex wanted Guerin to keep touching him, his cheeks growing hot at the realisation, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it. Guerin pressed his hand to the pod, and Alex was unconscious before he knew what had happened.

He woke up with his right leg in a vice, on fire, splintered and burning and torn open, except not. An arm was tight across his chest, he was on the floor with his upper body supported by someone kneeling behind him. He was lying in their lap, holding onto their wrist so hard he could feel their bones grinding together. Maria, he realised, and tried to take stock of himself. He was trembling, sweating, and his leg, his leg – 

He got phantom pains, but he’d never felt anything like this before. His throat was raw, and he bit off an awful scream as the pain seemed to increase. He could feel both feet, but a quick, terrified look down at himself gave him a view of one intact foot, and one deflated pants leg with an empty shoe at the end. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” he gasped, and Maria helped turn him sideways just in time for him to heave up the contents of his stomach onto the cave floor. It stank, and he retched again and again, the agony in his leg sending waves of nausea through his body, full-body shudders of wrongness shaking him from head to toe. He’d never been able to recall more than flashes from the day he’d lost his leg, but this must have been what his brain had blocked out, the pain of it being literally blown to pieces, his foot utterly destroyed and most of his tibia shattered. There must have been so much blood, shards of bone and chunks of flesh, but he couldn’t remember. 

“It’s okay,” Maria told him, holding on tight. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Liz knelt on his right and started rolling up his pants leg, and Alex retched again, feeling and not feeling the presence of the limb, his brain completely unable to deal with the double sensation.

“Don’t,” he choked, and when she ignored him he shouted as loud as he could. “DON’T!” She jerked back and he clenched his teeth shut on another scream. It hurt so much, he couldn’t think beyond how much it hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_.

There were footsteps, he couldn’t see beyond the glow of the pods, but he knew it had to be Michael, and he was shouting something, and running back again with someone else at his side.

Maria asked him something but Alex shook his head, eyes squeezed shut to try and keep back tears of pain.

“Max,” Liz said, and Max was there too, he was who Michael had run to get.

Alex twisted away, not wanting to catch sight of his legs even by accident, and when the smell of vomit hit him he retched again, helpless and hating it. He held onto Maria even tighter, needing to hold onto something to stop himself writhing, as if it would help him escape his body.

“Somewhere it won’t be seen,” Max said, and Alex flung out his right arm, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning into Maria’s strength.

“Do it.” He couldn’t say words with more than one syllable right now, he was dizzy and still feeling so sick. Idiotic instinct made him try to clench his toes, and being able to feel his right foot doing it was horrific. He could feel it there as though it was completely fine, but at the same time feel its absence, and on top of that the injury as it must have been. He could smell blood and gore and engine fumes, but he knew there weren’t any there. He could hear screams, but no one in the cave was raising their voice.

Max unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt with gentle hands and pushed his sleeve up as high as he could, which with his jacket still on was only up to his elbow. “Do it,” Alex snapped when it seemed that Max might be hesitating, and hoped he didn’t sound like he was begging. He certainly felt like he was begging.

Max curled his hand around Alex’s forearm, and the skin there turned hot as the feeling in his not-actually-there right leg receded, and then vanished entirely, along with the pain. Without it, Alex became aware of how loudly he was breathing, how his exhales had been almost whimpers.

Everyone was watching him. Alex kept his eyes closed and his hand clamped around Maria’s wrist, not ready to let her go. For a few brief, brilliant hours, they’d been friends again, and he didn’t want her to pull away yet.

Everything was mixed up in his head, all the emotions from his present were swirling around and mixing with those from his seventeen year old self, resurrected for half a day to fuck his life up even more than it already was. 

“Better?” Max asked, sounding wiped, and Alex finally opened his eyes and looked down at his body. His chest shook again as he inhaled, but he nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Any time.” Max let go of his arm and clapped his shoulder, still gentle, and Alex closed his eyes again rather than look at any of the faces currently peering at him.

“What do you need?” Liz asked softly, and Alex let out another shuddery breath.

“Home. I need to go home. I need my…my leg. And my spare crutches, they’re in my car.” Simple, clear requests. He could do this. He focused on regaining his composure, taking two more deep breaths before loosening his grip on Maria’s wrist. When her arm around his chest eased in response he had to hold his breath and fight down the urge to cling again, to open his mouth and beg her to stay like some pathetic kid.

He sat up instead, twisting away from the pool of vomit on his left and staying still while Maria shifted away, leaving him alone. There was absolutely no way he was taking his jeans off to put his prosthetic on in front of so many people, so he had no choice but to wait for his crutches, which someone – Max – had gone to get.

“Alright, he’s back to normal, you can leave off staring at him now.”

Kyle. Alex didn’t show his relief, but he looked up as Kyle came in and rolled his eyes like this was nothing out of the ordinary. He patted Liz’s arm and squatted down in front of Alex. “Still with us then?”

“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Alex managed to say, and Kyle gave him a humourless smile.

“I can hope, can’t I? Guys, back off,” he added, giving everyone around them a hard look. “Crowding him isn’t helping. How much do you remember?” he asked Alex.

“All of it.” Alex closed his eyes. “My head aches, but everything else seems fine.”

“Got it,” Max called from the entrance, coming in with Alex’s crutches. Both of them, thank fuck, Alex had never been so glad for his own foresight in keeping them in his trunk. 

“Help me up,” Alex told Kyle, and Kyle helped him rise to stand on his left leg, and handed him the crutches when Max passed them over. “I’m fine.”

“I’m driving you home,” Kyle said, and Alex didn’t bother trying to argue with him. His car was back at Max’s anyway, and he just wanted to leave as soon as he could. He didn’t look at anyone as he hobbled out of the cave, relieved when none of them tried to talk to him. Michael’s bent head in his periphery was more than he could take right now. Direct eye contact might kill him.

There was too much in his head to process. Too many opposing thoughts and feelings. 

“You wanna talk about it now, or when we’re back at yours?” Kyle asked him quietly as they got in his car. 

“Later.” Walking to the car had exhausted him. Alex didn’t even have the energy to put the crutches in the backseat. 

“You feeling okay? You said you had a headache when you came to earlier, you got that again?”

“Yeah.”

Kyle started the engine. Alex closed his eyes and tried not to scream as Kyle went quickly and quietly through his list of check-up questions, and then fell blessedly silent.

What a fucking day.

Kyle turned the radio on to fill the quiet and drove without speaking, something Alex loved him for. It gave him a while to try and sort through the tangle in his head. All his teenage rage and fear were running close to the surface, his horrified disbelief at the path his own life had taken fresh and painful.

If he could go back and speak to his teenaged self, how could he explain it? Everything had changed when his father had caught him with Michael and maimed his hand. Alex had kissed those fingers not even an hour before that, had watched Michael’s mouth drop open in response, his eyes dark.

Keep him, he’d told Maria, as if it was that easy. As if he could give Michael up like that, like he was nothing.

His father had left the hammer in the shed when he’d dragged Alex away, his hand tight and impossible to escape on the back of his neck. Dragged away like a dog, weeping with fear and anger and despair, knowing how incapable he was, how utterly helpless in the face of his father’s superior strength. He’d been sure at the time that he was about to die, that his dad was about to kill him. 

He didn’t hit him often, was the funny thing. Even when he did attack, it was more likely to be a trip to bring him down, or his arm being twisted up behind his back, or being shoved into a wall or a piece of furniture. Shows of strength, reinforcing Alex’s weakness. Alex had gone over it in therapy, a little anyway, and he knew now that it was the threat of the violence that had really worn at him. The unceasing fear of his home environment had preoccupied so much of his life, taken up so much mental space. He’d tried to fight it in his own way, when he’d finally understood that nothing he ever did would change who he was, so he might as well be himself as loudly as possible. It had given his father a target, he understood in retrospect. If he was making cutting comments about Alex dressing up like a girl, he wasn’t focusing on Alex’s less obvious deviances.

It was his words that had been the cruellest part of the abuse, usually. But after finding Alex with Michael in the tool shed, after bringing the hammer down on Michael’s hand as Michael screamed in pain, he’d dragged Alex into the house and forced him onto his knees and kicked him until Alex had begged him to stop, and then he’d pressed Alex’s face into the floor with his boot on the back of Alex’s head and said in a cold, low voice that Alex was a disgusting excuse for a man, that he should have never been born, and that if Alex ever embarrassed him like that again, there would be dire consequences. He’d made him go back to the shed after Michael was gone and clean it from top to bottom. Alex had washed blood off the hammer his father had hit Michael with, the threat of _dire consequences_ ringing in his ears.

Enlist or face those consequences had been the implication, and Alex had heard it loud and clear. His father thought the military would straighten him up in all senses of the phrase.

He’d been seventeen, terrified out of his wits, and in the days that followed he’d lost both Rosa and Liz in quick succession. Maria had been grieving too, they’d all been shocked, and Alex had seen Michael around town with his hand wrapped in so much gauze it had looked twice the size it should have done.

His father had forced Michael away, and Alex had wanted to stand up to him, to be stronger than him. Joining the Air Force had also happened to serve as an escape.

No wonder his younger self hadn’t understood, without that critical event in his memory. His first love, his first heartbreak, the catalyst for his entire future. Michael had changed his life in so many ways.

Alex counted his breathing, forcing himself to keep his roiling thoughts beneath the surface. He’d forgotten how easily he used to cry. The tool shed had changed that too. He’d started basic training numb, and finished it tough. Or tougher, at least. Not tough enough to face his dad. Not tough enough to come home. 

Every time the opportunity had presented itself, he’d wriggled out of it. He’d rented shitty apartments with other friends who had nowhere else to go and visited others when he’d had no other options. He’d stayed on half a dozen bases in unfamiliar territory, away from Roswell, and he wasn’t sure even now whether that was more down to his fear of facing his father or his fear of facing Michael.

He’d imagined Michael with a different future. He’d been so smart, he _was_ so smart, he should’ve gone to college, should’ve left Roswell far behind. Alex had kept his eyes averted, afraid of the truth for so long that he’d buried the desire itself. 

_Keep him._

Alex had to hold his breath through the urge to sob. He refused to shed any tears in front of anyone, even Kyle.

He’d wanted Michael at seventeen and he wanted him now, more than air, more than truth, more than anything he’d ever wanted in his whole life. Selfishly, covetously, he wanted.

Kyle parked as close to the front door of the cabin as possible, but didn’t offer Alex help as he climbed slowly out of the car. He held Alex’s prosthesis instead, and stayed close enough to catch him if he stumbled. He checked only when they got up onto the porch, and he was sliding the key into the lock. “You good, man?”

Alex considered lying. He was used to lying. But Kyle opened the door for him and waited for him to go in first, and Alex walked through slowly, the crutches hard on his palms. “Not really,” he said quietly, once he was inside.

“You need anything?” Kyle asked, following him inside. “Meds, water, food? You threw a lot up back there.”

“Yeah.” Alex couldn’t face the idea of eating anything, but taking pills on an empty stomach wouldn’t be smart. “You hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.” Alex swung himself slowly into the kitchen, letting Kyle turn on the lamps. It was so much harder to navigate around the furniture with two crutches, and the idea of making anything was overwhelming. He stared at the fridge and had to close his eyes and count to ten before he could face the idea of opening it.

Kyle approached loud enough for him to hear, and when Alex opened his eyes he was turning on the lights in the kitchen and giving Alex a look of such grave understanding that Alex wanted to shove him out of the door, mortified at being seen like this. “You got anything easy?” he asked. “Any bread?”

“Pitas, in the freezer,” Alex remembered. He had a stockpile of them for times like this, when he needed to line his stomach but couldn’t expend the energy to cook. He was too far outside of town for food deliveries.

“Perfect.” Kyle found them and popped two in the toaster. “Meds?”

“Bathroom cabinet.”

“Sit down, man.” Kyle pulled a chair out at the table as he walked past, and Alex lowered himself into it slowly, leaning his crutches against the table. 

“I just need to sleep,” he said when Kyle came back, pills in hand. He put them on the table and got Alex a glass of water, and popped the pitas out of the toaster a second later. Alex hadn’t done much reorganising in the kitchen, so Kyle found a plate on his first attempt and put it in front of him.

“Mind if I crash on the couch?” he asked, sitting down too. “It’s pretty late.”

“Sure.” Alex picked up one of the pitas and took a bite. Plain, tasting of almost nothing, it was exactly what he needed. It seemed to take him forever to eat them, but Kyle didn’t ask any more questions. He took an apple from the fruit bowl and ate that, matching his speed to Alex’s.

Who would have predicted that Kyle Valenti would turn out to be such a good friend? Certainly not Alex at age seventeen. But teenaged Alex wouldn’t have expected his friendship options to be so limited either, to be fair. Who else would have come back with him to make sure he was okay? Liz, maybe. Not Maria.

He was going to have to talk to her. He’d been putting it off for too long, running away again. 

Alex swallowed his pills, drank his water, and levered himself to his feet again. “Can you put my leg in my room?” he asked Kyle without looking at him.

“Sure thing.” Kyle got up too, dumping the apple core in the trash and licking his fingers clean before washing his hands as well. Alex went to the bathroom, and when he came out Kyle had already found blankets and was spreading them on the couch.

“Hey,” he said, and Kyle looked up. “Thank you.”

Kyle nodded. “Get some sleep. I’ve got a day off tomorrow, so I’ll be here in the morning.”

Alex wasn’t sure how else he would have gotten to Max’s to get his car, and Kyle knew that, but it was still both a relief and an irritation to hear. “Okay. Goodnight.”

“Night, man.”

He was well aware that his desire to pull away from all human interaction right now was unhealthy, and Kyle had recognised that, but he still wished as he changed for bed that he was alone in the cabin. He hated people seeing him when he felt so weak. 

He’d felt weak all the time as a kid. It was so obvious now, with the contrast so fresh in his mind. Alex slid into bed, crutches and prosthesis on the floor next to him, and turned off the lamp.

Good thing that he’d given himself a refresher on the silent crying, really. And this time he didn’t have to give himself a time limit. All he had to do was stay quiet enough that Kyle wouldn’t hear him, and he could sob into his pillow for as long as he needed to.

Fuck, did he need to.

Alex woke before his alarm, and knew the moment he opened his eyes that he wasn’t getting back to sleep. There was no light around the edges of his curtains, and his alarm clock read 5:17. His heart was racing, and there were tear tracks at the corners of his eyes, but whatever nightmare he’d woken up from had already faded.

He didn’t want to disturb Kyle, but he needed to use the bathroom. 

Frustration and anger blazed through him so fast and strong that it left him breathless. Teenage emotions, maybe. Or just the fresh loss of his leg. Youth really was wasted on the young. Youth and working limbs.

He could have taken stairs two at a time yesterday, and he hadn’t. He could have sprinted, and he hadn’t. Could’ve done some climbing, some jumping, all sorts. His idiot younger self hadn’t even understood how much losing a leg changed everything. He couldn’t even get up for a piss without having to either attach his prosthesis or stagger about on his crutches. Which meant turning on the lights, because he couldn’t navigate with crutches in the dark, and the crutches were also louder on the floor, and there was always the frightening possibility of one of them catching on a doorframe or slipping on one of the rugs. 

He’d fallen a lot, when he’d been learning to walk again. It was one of the things he’d hated most. His dad used to trip him, maybe that was why. A hand shoved between his shoulder blades at the same time an ankle hooked across his shins, and he’d crash down every time. His father had always been so much bigger and stronger, and even more so when Alex was on his knees.

“Get up,” he whispered to himself, and sat up in bed. He was going to be doing a lot of reminiscing in the near future, but that didn’t mean he had to let it control him.

Kyle had taken the liner out of his prosthesis, and Alex had forgotten to wash it last night. His clean one was in the bathroom, of course.

If he was quiet, maybe he could make it without waking Kyle up. He was around a corner from him, after all. He lowered himself slowly to the floor and started to crawl. He hated crawling even when he was alone, but when he knew there was the chance someone else could see him, it was next to impossible to force himself to do it. He opened his bedroom door quietly and moved across the hall and into the bathroom as fast as he could.

Kyle didn’t stir. Alex pissed, balanced on his left leg to wash his hands, put his clean liner over his shoulder, and crawled back to his bedroom. He hadn’t wanted to look at his stump last night, but he turned on his bedside lamp to examine it now. It helped, strangely. It had been over a year now since he’d lost it, and he was used to the lack. He ran his hand over it, feeling the odd squish of tissue around amputated bone. 

Michael was the only other person who’d touched it who wasn’t a medical professional of some sort. Alex looked away and pulled himself backwards across the floor to the mirror leaning glass-side against the wall. His stump felt fine now, but he had absolutely no doubt that last night’s experience was going to cause a resurgence in nightmares and phantom pains. Getting a jump on it might help.

He sat with the mirror between his legs, watching his left leg and its reflection rock back and forth, the ankle rotate, the foot point, the toes wiggle. 

All of his recent memories were jumbled. His work on the base mixed with memories of high school, the faces of his friends shifting in his mind. It was incredible how much he’d forgotten, how much he’d left in the past. His seventeen year old self had brought a fully realised life into his head, and he couldn’t untangle himself from it.

Classes, homework, exams, his old house, his old bedroom, the tool shed, the UFO Emporium – it all felt like it had happened yesterday instead of years and years ago. The misery of the daily bullying was fresh in his mind, the burn of social rejection newly painful. He never spoke about it to people who hadn’t been there, not wanting to admit he had ever been a victim in any sense, but in the privacy of his own mind he could acknowledge how awful it had been.

He’d been thinking of getting another piercing, in his cartilage this time. Maria had been spending more time with Rosa on top of the Crashdown, and he and Liz had bitched about it together, both of them jealous and craving the attention of their cooler friends. He’d been worried about graduation, about his dad being there, or not being there. He’d spent forever picking over that issue, it seemed insane in hindsight. Hours and hours worrying over whether or not his dad would come, trying to decide which outcome would be better, which would be more painful, more potentially humiliating.

His dad hadn’t come in the end, and by then it hadn’t even mattered. By graduation, Alex had kissed Michael Guerin and everything had changed.

Alex hung onto the top of the mirror and tried to make himself concentrate on his good leg and its reflection, but it was difficult when he was starting to cry again. _Again._ He needed to get control of himself, he needed to toughen up, soldier on.

He hiccupped and squeezed his eyes shut furiously, but it didn’t help. He’d wanted Michael so much; he’d wanted someone to want him so badly it had nearly killed him. He’d wanted someone to love him, and Michael had. Michael had given him everything, and for half a day, probably the same amount of time he’d been seventeen yesterday, he’d been happy.

He hadn’t really realised the way that his memory, when looking that far back, had been putting their older selves as the players on his mental stage. He’d forgotten how smooth Michael’s face had been, how sharp. They’d both been so young. He’d thought he remembered every detail of their first time in the tool shed, but now he realised he’d been pasting present Michael into those memories, updating them with new data.

Michael hadn’t had chest hair at all, at seventeen. He’d been lean, not bulky, and his kisses had been so sweet. Alex could remember them so clearly now, like they were still the only kisses he’d ever received. He’d worried briefly, after Michael had kissed him in the UFO Emporium, that he was just an experiment. A dangerous one, sure, but still, the idea of Michael liking him for himself and not as just the only convenient boy who would definitely kiss back had been a bit beyond him, at that age.

And then Michael had said otherwise, in the tool shed. He’d told Alex right to his face that he liked Alex more than anyone else he’d been with, and he’d taken off Alex’s shirt and helped him unbutton his pants, eager and gentle at the same time, and so clearly turned on. Alex had melted against him, they’d touched each other like they were starving for it, hungry mouths pressed to yearning skin.

It was the first time in his entire life Alex had been wanted. The first time someone he’d wanted had wanted him back, and done so unapologetically. That was something that had never changed. Michael never hid his feelings, never held back. His smile was different now though. His seventeen year old self had recognised it without understanding the new twist to Michael’s smiles, the way they almost always had an edge of mockery to them now, bitterness, or hurt. And always directed at himself rather than the person hurting him.

Alex remembered the first time they’d slept together when he’d come back. Michael had laid it out for him, told him he never looked away, that nothing had changed, he still wanted Alex, still loved him – and Alex had dragged him into his trailer for sex. He was never good on the spot when it came to his feelings. He needed time and space and a script. Michael threw himself in headlong, and all Alex could ever do was try to show him how he felt.

Inadequate, he’d realised too late. Michael needed the words too, and Alex had never managed to find the right ones. By the time he’d started trying, Michael’s patience had run out, and too much damage had already been done. He’d spilled his guts to Michael before Christmas, that day at the junkyard Michael had shown him his bunker. He’d laid it all on the line, and Michael had clearly decided it was too little, too late. Which, frankly, Alex could understand all too well.

Focusing on guilt instead of grief helped stem his tears at least, and he finally felt the toes of his phantom right foot twitch. He forced the memories from his mind, wiped his face roughly with his hands, and muttered his way through his routine. By the end of half an hour he could feel both feet, his right fainter than his left, but still there, neither of them in pain. It was past six, a much more acceptable time to get up, and his memories, recent and less recent, were safely boxed away in his head again.

He put his prosthesis on briefly to carry a change of clothes to the bathroom, and removed it when he was in there to shower. The cabin was old, with a bathtub and shower attachment instead of a shower cubicle, and while Alex liked that sometimes, most of the time it was just an inconvenience. He had a mat and a stool he put in the tub when he needed to shower, but it was still far too precarious for his liking. Still, it worked as long as he was careful.

He showered quickly, knowing it would wake Kyle up, and it was a huge relief to change into clothes and be able to stand up again without crutches. His stump was a little swollen, but it didn’t hurt to stand on, and he was able to shave standing up at the sink. It was the little things, on days like this.

Kyle was lying on the sofa with his phone held over his head when Alex looked into the living room. “Hey. You sleep okay?”

“Yeah, it’s a comfy couch.” Kyle swung his legs over the side and sat up, stretching his whole body out. “How’re you doing?”

“Better. You can shower if you want, I have spare towels.”

“That’d be great,” Kyle said gratefully, and stood up. Alex waited through the long, assessing look he gave him, one eyebrow raised. “How’s your leg?” Kyle asked, eyes flicking up from Alex’s knees to his face.

“Fine. You want breakfast?”

“Sure.”

Alex made scrambled eggs while Kyle showered, hoping they were still his favourites. By the way his expression brightened when he came out, they were.

“Thanks again, for last night,” Alex said as they sat down to eat. 

“You’re welcome.” Kyle shovelled eggs into his mouth with a happy sound. “I’ll drive you over to Max’s when we’re done. Thanks for feeding me, by the way.”

“Least I can do, really.” Alex had to force himself to eat his own portion. “Lesson learned, I guess – don’t touch the alien pods.”

Kyle nodded, and swallowed his mouthful. “You remember it all?”

“Yeah. It’s like…” Alex gave up and shrugged, meeting Kyle’s eyes with a resigned look. “I can’t describe it. It’s like I was seventeen for a day. What was it like for you?”

“Oh, scary.” Kyle had obviously thought about his answer beforehand. “Like, the idea of never getting you back to your actual age. It would fuck so many things up – there’s no way we’d be able to cover for you. Funny, in a way. And sad. And weirdly cathartic, for me.”

“Cathartic, really?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Well yeah.” Kyle shrugged. “Last time I apologised for being such a dick in high school you kind of forced it out of me and then immediately brushed it off. It was better, being able to say sorry to the guy I actually bullied.”

“Glad I could be of assistance,” Alex said dryly, and Kyle grinned.

“Well, look for the positives, right? That was the first time you’ve spoken to Maria for weeks.”

Alex looked down at his plate. “Yeah. Michael too.”

“Gonna try again?”

“I’ll message Maria later.” He still couldn’t face Michael. “Leave them,” he added as Kyle got up to put his plate in the sink. “I’ll do it later.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” He let a little of his irritation bleed through, and Kyle lifted his hands in surrender.

“Alright, if you say so. You wanna talk about any of it?”

Alex shook his head and got to his feet. “Not right now.”

“Let me know, okay?”

“I will.” Alex meant it, and he could tell Kyle knew. 

Alex put his crutches and a few spare stump socks in Kyle’s car in case his leg started to shrink a bit and they drove back to Max’s mostly in silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable, and it didn’t seem to take as long as it had last night.

Max’s car was already gone, much to Alex’s relief. Safely deposited in his own car, he got his phone out and messaged Maria. 

_Are you free this afternoon to talk?_

He’d expected to have to drive to Roswell before getting a reply, but one came back almost immediately.

_Yeah, are you in town?_

_Just got my car from Max's, be in soonish. Can I come to the Pony?_

_Yeah, I’ll see you soon._

Alex had to force himself not to give an ETA, to hide behind what he knew. Maria would see him when he got to her. That was enough.

The drive into town was even quieter without Kyle sitting next to him, and Alex didn’t want to fill it with radio songs and chatter. The desert stretched out either side of him, mountains in the distance and sun cold and distant overhead. Of all the places for an alien spaceship to crash, it had to be New Mexico. Had to be Roswell.

Had to have been his great-grandfather working on the site. His father running Caulfield. Him getting Michael’s mother killed, getting Michael’s hand broken. It had felt so inevitable yesterday, and it was bleeding over into today. He didn’t believe in fate or destiny, but the way his life was tangled with Michael’s felt like more than chance. Cosmic, like Michael had said. 

_Keep him._

Alex wrenched his thoughts away and glared at the road, concentrating on keeping the needle exactly on the speed limit. By the time he arrived, his leg was sore and aching, and when he got out and walked around his car to test it, it jarred as though he was bottoming out on every step. It had happened when he came back to Roswell too, the residual limb swelling in response to his mental state more than any physical stimulus. Proximity to his father, he’d assumed at the time. It had faded, but it flared up if he was stressed. 

He resented having to do it, but he got one of the crutches out of his trunk. 

The Wild Pony wasn’t opening until 6 that evening, but the door was open when Alex tried it. He didn’t steel himself to walk inside, or take a steadying breath. He’d faced worse than this in his life, dozens of times. He wasn’t even sure if he was nervous or just tense. He wouldn’t be able to control the outcome of this conversation, and he was going to make sure he didn’t try to. 

Maria was sat at the bar, and she looked up and met his eyes in the mirror behind it as he approached. He saw her clock the crutch just before she turned around. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” Alex came over slowly, and when she didn’t get up he sat next to her on a barstool, leaning his crutch between his legs.

Maria looked exactly the same as she had yesterday outside Max’s house. Unsmiling, a little wary. Sad too, he could see up close. They were reading each other, he realised as she stood up on the stool and leaned over the bar. “You want a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” Maria grabbed herself a glass and a bottle of tequila, and poured herself a shot. “So.”

“So,” he echoed, looking down at his hands on the bar. “I wanted to say a few things.”

“I’ll bet,” she muttered, tilting her glass from side to side.

“I wanted to say thank you, first,” he said dryly. “For yesterday. And I wanted to explain some things. And say…” He hesitated, then pushed himself on. “I miss you. And I want us to be friends again.”

Maria kept her eyes on her shot for a long moment before looking sideways at him. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to compartmentalise. She’d adapted faster than anyone yesterday, treating him exactly the way his seventeen year old self had needed and expected. Kind, generous, teasing – perfect Maria, changing who she was to suit whoever she was with. She was better at this than he would ever be, and she knew it. “You think we can be?”

“I want us to be.” He couldn’t hold her gaze, and looked back at his hands instead. Unadorned and plain. He remembered how often he’d looked at them yesterday, how surprising and upsetting it had been every time. “But thank you first. I was freaked out and scared and confused, and you didn’t have to help me, but you did.”

“Alex…”

“I would’ve understood if you hadn’t come,” he said. “I’ve been a terrible friend lately.”

“It’s not like you haven’t had your reasons,” she said quietly, and he shook his head.

“That goes both ways.” This was the hardest part. He’d tried scripting it on the drive here, but it was all muddled in his head now. His leg ached and his heart hurt and he wished on some level that he could be seventeen again and go back to loving Maria with none of the complications that brought now. “You were always such a good friend,” he said. “You were Liz’s best friend, and Rosa’s best friend, and mine. I always…I worried you liked them more than me.”

“Alex,” Maria started, all surprise and hurt and denial, and he shook his head quickly.

“Just let me say this, okay? I knew I wasn’t always a good friend, even then. I wasn’t sweet like Liz or cool like Rosa, and I wanted you to like me best. You were always the best of us.” He swallowed, curling the toes of his remaining foot and feeling a spasm of phantom sensation echoed in his non-existent one. “I know what Michael’s like. We both…we know. But I wanted you to pick me, over him. I always wanted you to pick me, and when you chose each other instead, I took it out on you, and I shouldn’t have. If I was Michael, I’d pick you too.”

“He still loves you,” Maria said, barely audible, and Alex grimaced.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re better, you always have been. You don’t have anything to do with any of the horrible things that’ve happened to him, and you’ve known him so much longer. You’ve been friends longer. Which isn’t even the point,” he added, irritated at how he’d let himself get derailed. “It’s not all about Guerin.” He finally looked at her, and something sharp went through him when he saw her eyes were wet. “I miss you,” he said. “I meant it yesterday when I said I didn’t want a future where we aren’t friends. You’re one of the best parts of my whole life. You made high school worth surviving. I want you back in my life. I shouldn’t have pushed you away in the first place. You’re so good at being what everyone else needs, and we all take advantage. I took advantage. I’ve been…I’ve been selfish.”

“Alex –”

“I have,” he said, harsher than he’d meant. “I’ve been selfish, and petty, and cruel.” Just like his father. They were more alike than Alex had ever wanted to admit.

Maria’s hand skittered across the bar and he held his out in time for her to take it, both of them holding on tight. She lifted her other hand to wipe quickly at her eyes, and when she spoke her voice was steady. “I’ve been a shitty friend too. I shouldn’t’ve slept with him –”

“You didn’t even know at the time.”

“And I definitely shouldn’t’ve let him come back.”

“But he wanted to,” Alex said quietly, looking at their clasped hands. “He wants you, not me. That’s not your fault, and I’m done blaming you for it.” 

Maria squeezed his hand and pulled her stool closer so she could lean against him. Alex closed his eyes and held onto her, taking deep, even breaths and keeping the threat of tears firmly at bay. He couldn’t bring himself to say _keep him_ , but he knew Maria would hear it anyway. 

“I need to talk to Michael,” Maria said after what seemed like a very long time. “You should too, you know.”

“I know.” Alex opened his eyes. “I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“It never ends well. I promised myself I’d stop walking away and start being honest, but it was too late.” He hadn’t realised how late until Michael had told Maria everything. He’d finally started walking towards Michael instead of away, and Michael had promptly turned tail and fled. Turnabout was fair play, Alex supposed.

“You know he never told me what actually happened to his hand until last night?” Maria said, deceptively casual, as if her words hadn’t yanked away the balance Alex had tried to create. “He always said it was an accident, and he didn’t want to talk about it, and I never pushed.”

“It was my fault,” Alex whispered, and winced when Maria squeezed his hand hard enough to hurt. “Ow, Maria –”

“Did you pick up the hammer?” she asked sharply. “Did you hit him? It wasn’t your fault.”

“I brought him to that shed.” Alex stared at their hands. “I told him it would be safe. I knew what my dad was like, I knew he’d hit the roof if he found out Michael was staying there.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said stubbornly. “Stop blaming yourself for things you can’t control.”

Alex didn’t protest, knowing it was futile to argue even if he knew she was wrong.

She sighed. “You still love him too, don’t you?”

Even if he tried to lie, he knew she’d be able to tell. She could almost always tell, and when they were this close, there was no hiding. “I’ve loved him since I was seventeen,” he admitted, barely audible. It didn’t matter, he wanted to say, but his throat had closed up. His feelings meant nothing if Michael didn’t return them. Hell, even if he did, it meant nothing if he wasn’t willing to act on them.

Maria’s sympathy was like an aura that seeped into his skin, prickling him with embarrassment and self-pity. “I don’t know what to do,” she murmured. “I haven’t since he…”

“Kissed you?”

“No.” She took a deep, slow breath. “The night I put my mom in Sunset Mesa, I closed the bar and he came in anyway. I could tell he needed it, I guess, so I said he could have one drink as long as he didn’t talk. And I just started crying, the second he sat down.” She rolled her eyes a little, as if it would hide the watery note to her voice. “I couldn’t help it, I felt like my whole world had died. And I figured he’d act like one of the other assholes who’s always in here, y’know? I was so embarrassed, and I thought he’d hightail it out of there or get real awkward about the whole thing.

“But he put his arm around me and just let me cry on him.” She looked up at the ceiling and shrugged, her shoulder moving against Alex’s. “For ages, and he didn’t try to get me to stop or tell me it was going to be okay or anything. He just stayed. I didn’t find out till later that he and Max had taken Isobel to the hospital that night, so she could check herself into the psych ward. He didn’t even mention it.”

Alex’s heart was twisting in his chest. “Yeah,” he managed. “That sounds like him.” Michael was exactly the kind of guy who would push and smirk and tease right up till he realised something was serious, and then he’d move heaven and earth to help. It was one of the traits Alex had forced himself to ignore, making himself see only the illusion Michael projected. All the swagger and none of the soul.

“He’s such an asshole,” Maria muttered. “Making everyone think he’s a piece of shit, and then he turns around and…”

“Yeah.”

“And he’s hot,” she added darkly, and Alex finally cracked a smile, though it was shakier than he would have liked.

“Yeah. In a…what was it? Smells like a river kind of way?”

Maria snorted and let go of his hand. “I need to talk to him. We need to figure things out.”

“Don’t break up with him,” Alex said, turning to face her and forcing himself to meet her eyes. “People keep leaving him, he deserves better.”

A muscle clenched in Maria’s jaw. “I’m no one’s second choice. If the only reason he’s with me is because he thinks he can’t have you –”

“He knows he could have me,” Alex interrupted. “I told him, weeks ago. But it isn’t enough. You said it yesterday – we’re twisted up over each other. That isn’t a good thing, Maria. All we do is crash into each other and hurt each other, each time worse than the last.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve hurt him too much. I don’t want to keep hurting him, and I don’t want to be the instrument he uses to hurt himself. Yeah, it sucks, but it only sucks this much because it’s you, and I can’t…” He swallowed, wanting to be sure his voice wouldn’t crack. “I can’t lose both of you. I need you.” It cost to admit it, like cutting himself open and inviting Maria to pour salt in the wound.

She didn’t though. She slid off the bar stool and moved his crutch out of the way so she could step between his legs and wrap her arms around him.

Alex couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged him, not counting yesterday, and he buried his face in her shoulder like he was a dumb teenager again, his heart hammering against his lungs and tears burning in his eyes. She was stroking his hair, just like Mimi used to, and Alex clenched his hands into fists on top of her shirt, not wanting to wrinkle the fabric. 

“We’re gonna be okay,” Maria said firmly. “Whatever happens. If he stays with me, if he goes back to you, we’ll figure it out. Even if we’re angry with each other, we’ll talk it out, and we’ll stay friends. No boy is ever getting between us. Not even Guerin.”

Alex didn’t want to ask, it felt childish and absurd, so he made it a statement instead, drawing back to look Maria in the face. They both had watery eyes, but he kept holding onto her. “You promise.”

“Yeah.” She took it as seriously as he did. “And so do you, right?”

He nodded. “I promise.”

“Good.” She hugged him again, tight and hard, before drawing back. “We’re gonna hang out again, okay? I’ve got an evening free this week, let’s go drinking somewhere that isn’t my own bar.”

“You wanna give custom to other places?” Miraculously, he found himself smiling. It was small, but it was genuine, and in Maria it was echoed and magnified.

“Not really,” she agreed, smirking. “Hey, I haven’t even been to your new place yet. I’ll bring drinks, you cook. If Liz is free we can drag her in too.”

“You wanna invite Kyle as well?” Alex grinned. “Get all of team human together for a party?”

“If team human can coordinate calendars, absolutely. And even if the two of them can’t, you can cook dinner for me.” She smiled. “You know what I like.” She waited for him to nod, then stepped back and handed him his crutch. “Outta my bar, you. Some of us have work to do.”

He stood up, still smiling, eyes still wet. “I’ll see you later then.”

“Damn right you will.” She swatted his shoulder, and he started walking, swinging his weight from his good side to his bad. By the time he got to his car, Maria had set up a new group chat with him, Liz, and Kyle called Team Human, and she’d sent him a new message privately.

_I can get cover for Wednesday or Thursday lmk what works for you!_

Alex sat in his car and allowed himself to feel all the relief and desperate hope he’d been keeping a lid on since Maria had hugged him. They were going to be okay. A promise was a promise, that was something Mimi had always told them. Maria had promised, so it was going to be true. He knew he wasn’t getting Michael back, but he deserved that. He could live with it – he could _learn_ to live with it. 

His younger self had been so disappointed in his present, but Alex was going to fix it. It might be too late for Michael, but he could repair his relationships with his friends, and he knew who he was even better now he was an adult. Just because he didn’t wear eyeliner anymore didn’t mean he didn’t have a personality. He was stronger than his dad, and he’d gained a lot from the Air Force. He couldn’t have known then how many friends he would make, how much confidence it would give him, how many skills he would develop. 

He’d never been sure of himself, as a kid. Never settled in his skin. Alex gripped the steering wheel and breathed a sigh of relief that he’d grown up.

Alex wasn’t expecting Michael to come and see him immediately, but he would have been lying to himself if he’d said he wasn’t expecting him at all. But the day after his deaging (as he and Team Human had started calling it) went by without a word from Guerin, and so did the next, and then Alex was back to work and worrying about bigger problems. Or at least, problems that had an impact on more than just his emotional state.

Luckily, after being in multiple active warzones, the move from Intelligence to Security Forces hadn’t been difficult. He was used to his job now, and the airmen around him were used to him. It was the extra-curricular problems that he was losing sleep over, like what to do about his father, and what to do about Flint, and the other staff at Caulfield. He’d been digging like hell, but carefully so as not to tip anyone off.

He was good at switching off, but it helped to have a proper night off, cooking for Maria, Liz, and Kyle. He wasn’t a very good cook, but he could follow a recipe without too many disasters. Food in the Manes household had consisted of a lot of steamed vegetables, chops, and instant meals. It wasn’t like he’d ever taken a cooking course in the Air Force, so he occasionally found himself Googling things like ‘how much is a pinch of salt?’ and ‘how to chop herbs’. 

It was something he planned on never telling anyone, just like he planned on not letting the others know he was nervous about them trying his probably sub-par cooking. Liz and Maria could both cook well, and while he didn’t know for sure about Kyle, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the asshole was the kind of guy who could open a fridge and make something amazing out of its contents without even opening a recipe book. 

Luckily, the chilli went down okay. No one had any complaints anyway, at least not to his face. Alex had to stop himself asking them how it was more than once. They kept the conversation mostly light, diverting only twice – once to share a few collective concerns over how Isobel was doing, and once to brainstorm potential solutions to what Liz called the Jesse Manes Problem. By that point however, they were all several beers deep and the proposals quickly devolved to the ‘launch him into space’ and ‘flood the hospital’ level of silliness.

Alex really should’ve seen it coming the moment he offered to let everyone sleep over so they could keep drinking. He’d gotten up to get another round, Liz and Maria were squashed together on the couch, and Kyle was half asleep in the armchair. It was Kyle who rolled his head on his neck and gave Alex a look through half-lidded eyes before asking, “So what’s going on with you and Guerin? You talked yet?”

Alex looked down so he wouldn’t look at Maria. “Not yet.”

“Still not a war,” Kyle said dryly. “Just a conversation.”

“It’s complicated,” Maria said, thankfully before Alex had to think of a response to that. Kyle looked at her instead, and Alex went back in slowly to hand out the beers.

“You two’re friends again,” Kyle gestured between them with his bottle before popping it open and slurping the froth away. “I guess you haven’t been avoiding him like Alex has.”

“Kinda hard, since he spends all his free time at the Pony,” Liz snorted, and Maria elbowed her gently.

“He does not. No more than he already did anyway.” She chewed her lip. “It’s complicated.”

“Why not just share him if you both like him so much?” Kyle huffed. “I don’t get what all the fuss is about, no offence.”

“Well that’s because you don’t like guys,” Liz said, quite reasonably. “Sit down, Alex, come on.” She gestured sloppily for him to sit back on the couch next to her. “I get it,” she said, turning back to Kyle. “Like, I’m not into him, but I get the appeal.”

“Do we have to do this?” Alex asked, pained.

“Depends how long you’re gonna let it go on,” Kyle said. “Have you given him up? Is that what you’re doing with the whole avoiding him thing?”

“Like, he’s attractive,” Liz went on over the top of them. “He’s got the scruff thing going on, and he’s not a fake cowboy like a lot of guys. The cowboy thing is hot.”

“Jesus.” Kyle tipped his head back. “No. Doctors, _doctors_ are hot.”

“Aw, are you sad we’re not all fighting over you?” Maria teased, poking him with the tip of her boot. “It’s okay, I think you’re hot. Probably the best looking of our graduating year, objectively speaking.”

Kyle lifted his head, a speculative eyebrow raised. “Hotter than Max Evans?”

Liz grinned. “I plead the fifth.”

“Objectively,” Maria said, glancing at Alex and waiting for his grudging nod of agreement. “Yeah, you’re hotter.”

Kyle punched the air in slow motion. “Vindication. Not that it’s getting me anywhere, but thank you, I appreciate your support.”

“What, are you running for mayor?” Alex snorted. 

“Well I’ll have to do something after I lose my medical licence, and although my favourite second choice of career is still ice cream man, mayor would be pretty cool.” Kyle sighed and sat up to take a quick gulp of beer. “Though I guess if I really wanna get popular, I should train as a mechanic.”

“Listen.” Liz leaned forward and gave Kyle an intense look. “You’re already good with your hands.”

“I don’t need to hear this!” Alex laughed, pretending to put his hands over his ears.

“No, I mean, you’re a surgeon!” Liz said emphatically. “That’s just as good as a mechanic in terms of hotness level, if not better. Back me up here, guys.”

“You get the grease smears with a mechanic though,” Maria mused. “They’re kinda hot.”

Alex thought of Michael bent over an engine, the long lines of his legs and the muscles of his back, and took a long drink of his beer. It was stupid to think Maria wouldn’t notice, but he ignored her eyes flicking to him and ignored his own flash of want and regret.

“You’re all shallow and vapid,” Kyle declared, completely missing it. “And I still vote sharing as the best solution.”

“If you were still in love with Liz,” Alex said, irritated, “and Max proposed you share her, how would you react? Without even asking her about it, by the way.”

Kyle considered that. “You may have a point.”

“Polyamory isn’t always the solution,” Liz said, sounding genuinely sad about it, and both Alex and Maria frowned at her.

“Have you tried it?” Maria asked, and raised her eyebrows when Liz shrugged. “What the hell, when?”

“Mm, about…four, five years ago?” She shrugged again like it was no big deal, and hell, maybe it hadn’t been for her. “I was really into this guy, but there was another girl we both knew who was also really into him, and he suggested we try it together. I think he probably thought he’d get hot threesomes out of it.” She shook her head and leaned sideways into Maria, lifting her feet up into Alex’s lap. He steadied her without thinking about it, resting both hands on her shins.

“How’d that go?” Kyle asked, visibly curious.

“Not great.” Liz made a face. “We both got really jealous of each other. Every time he wasn’t with me, I imagined him with her having a better time. It didn’t last more than a month.”

“I had a friend during my residency who made it work,” Kyle said. “She had two boyfriends. They all lived together, they were even planning on having kids at some point.”

“What happened?” Maria asked, fascinated. She’d always had an appetite for harmless gossip.

“What? Nothing, they’re still together.” Kyle shrugged. “Apparently it’s all about communication and shared calendars.”

Liz made a curious noise. “Were the boyfriends together too?” 

“Nah. I think they still shared a bed though, so.” Kyle took another gulp of his beer. “Must’ve been pretty good friends. They definitely loved her.”

“Lucky girl,” Maria said dryly.

“Tired girl,” Liz countered, and they both snickered.

In the quiet that followed, Alex said, “It wouldn’t work.” He looked at Maria, relieved when all he saw in her face was amusement and agreement. “I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely too jealous.”

“And I don’t share.” She gave Kyle fake apologetic smile. “Sorry hon, you’ll have to matchmake elsewhere.”

Kyle flung his hands up in the air, careful not to spill any of his beer. “Can’t say I didn’t try.” 

“You did your best,” Liz agreed, and leaned over to pat his knee. Maria and Alex had to hold onto her, laughing, so she didn’t roll off the couch.

The next morning, Alex followed Maria out onto the porch as she left. “Have you talked to him?” he asked, before his courage could fail him.

“Yeah.” She sighed and leaned against one of the roof supports. “For a guy who can’t shut up, he’s not great at talking about himself. I don’t know, it’s like he thinks he needs to take whatever’s offered in case it gets snatched away. I don’t know what any of us are supposed to do.” She looked up at him, an unhappy crease between her eyebrows. “He keeps saying you two are over, but it’s obvious he still wants you.”

It was strange how something he should want to hear should hurt so much. “It’s his decision.” Alex looked away. “You’re the better choice anyway. He deserves someone who won’t hurt him like I do.”

She touched his arm, then wrapped her hand around it and squeezed. “Hey. You wanna come and visit my mom with me this weekend?”

He smiled at her, lightness seeming to spread outwards from his centre. “I’d love that. I’m busy Sunday, but Saturday could work?”

“Whatever time works for you. I don’t have to be back at the Pony till late. Turns out paying for assisted living is cheaper in the long run than paying for endless consultations and miracle cures.” She sighed and used her hand on his arm to pull him into a hug. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Soon,” he agreed, closing his eyes for a moment and just holding on. 

Maria must have talked to Michael again that evening. Coming back from a twelve hour shift the next night, Alex’s stomach lurched, his heart rate kicking up a gear at the sight of Michael’s truck parked in front of his cabin. His lights showed Michael himself lounging on the porch in the rough wooden chair Kyle’s father had built, and something different at the side of the house.

The wood pile was gone, Alex realised, frowning as he turned off his engine and got out. No, not gone – stacked neatly at a distance from the side of the cabin. He turned away from it as Michael stood up, hat low on his head. 

It was easy to ignore his feelings when the source of them wasn’t in his presence. A trick Alex had always taken full advantage of; running away and avoiding his problems. It was easy even when he and Michael lived in the same town. Avoid the junkyard and the Pony, and Alex was set. And with Michael out of sight, it was so much easier to put him out of mind. 

There was no ignoring Michael if he was standing right in front of him. Alex held onto his car door for a long moment before swinging it closed. The lights turned off when he locked it, and he let out a quiet breath. It was almost completely dark, but he could feel Michael’s eyes on him all the same. “Guerin.” Bad start? He hated how uncertain Michael made him. Michael didn’t answer, and Alex made himself walk forward, careful and slow over the unpaved earth. “Been waiting long?”

“A while.”

Alex had missed his voice. He hoped his expression was as invisible to Michael as Michael’s was to him, because he knew his face had just done something stupid. “I was at work.”

“I know.”

“Did you stack my woodpile?”

He saw the outline of Michael’s body move, a shoulder lifting in a shrug. “I got bored.”

Absurdly, Alex hoped he hadn’t gotten any splinters, though the more pressing danger would have been spiders. If aliens didn’t get sick, could they still be poisoned? 

He was thinking like his father, and he shook his head to clear it. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome.” Michael stood back and watched as Alex climbed the steps up to the porch and got his keys out of his pocket. He was used to unlocking the door in the dark now, and once he’d opened it he inclined his head towards the gap. Michael nodded, and when Alex went in, he followed.

Alex didn’t look at him directly as he turned on the lamps in the living room. He watched Michael from his periphery instead, taking in his appearance in bits and pieces, inoculating himself against the full effect. Michael looked like he always did. Dusty jeans, huge belt buckle, plaid shirt, thick black jacket. Tangled curls and scruffy jaw. He took his hat off as Alex turned on the final lamp, holding it in his hands like a shield. His unbroken fingers were delicate on the black material, and Alex made himself straighten and face him properly.

Combative or careful. Instinct pulled him to the former, and he wasn’t sure he could maintain the latter. Still, it might be better to try. Let Michael’s reaction to it dictate the direction after that point. So Alex didn’t demand to know what he wanted, but asked, “How’re you doing?”

Michael hadn’t expected the question, if his raised eyebrows were any indication. “Really?” Alex raised his eyebrows a fraction. He wasn’t going to hide. Michael huffed and glanced away, then back, like he was making himself do it too. “Okay. I’ll be honest, I don’t know. Maria keeps trying to talk to me about you and it seems like she can’t decide whether to dump my ass or not. You’re avoiding me. And I know you two have been talking about me to each other, and I have no idea what you’ve said or decided, and I don’t like it.” He set his jaw, almost glaring. “You told me we were done, but you’re acting like I broke your heart. What the hell is going on?”

Alex was beyond unprepared for this. He should have been planning this whole time, he knew now. He should have prepared what he was going to say when Michael inevitably came to him. Should have given himself multiple options, multiple scripts. He hated going into anything blind, and Michael kept blindsiding him.

“What, you’re mute now?” Michael asked sarcastically, and Alex closed his eyes and took a step back. His good calf hit the couch, and he lowered himself down onto it slowly. Let Michael have the high ground.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said at last, speaking to his hands as he clasped them on his knees. He could feel Michael’s eyes on him again, and it was routine, familiar. Michael watched and watched, never wavering. Alex was the one who looked back in bits and pieces, back and forth, away and back again like there would be a punishment for lingering. The only times Michael ever looked away first was if Alex held his gaze.

“Time was, you wouldn’t shut up,” Michael said unkindly. “What happened?”

“You picked Maria.” Alex clenched his jaw the second the words were out, immediately regretting them. “I don’t blame you,” he said, glancing up quickly. Michael was scowling, but there was confusion and hurt there too. Ever the coward, Alex ducked his head again. “I get it.”

“Do you.” 

He was angry. Alex’s mind rocketed through the exit routes, through an attack plan that would have Michael flat on his back before he could use his powers, and he breathed out and let them go. “I’m not exactly the healthy choice.” 

“So why’re you avoiding me? You gave Valenti that bit of my ship to pass on rather than do it yourself. I get that the first time we’d been in the same space since Noah died I got your age reversed, but that won’t happen again, it was a freak accident, okay?”

“I got my own age reversed,” Alex corrected, and watched in surprise as Michael dropped his hat onto the table and dropped himself into the armchair opposite the couch, putting them on the same level. “I.” Pause, breathe. He looked at Michael’s hat instead of at his face. “I don’t want to make things harder than they already are.”

“They’re pretty hard.” Michael’s eyes were heavy on his skin and Alex fought the urge to close his own in response. 

“I don’t want to get in your way,” he said quietly.

“What _do_ you want?” Michael leaned forward. “Cause I can’t figure it out.”

“You’re the smartest man I’ve ever known.”

“And you’re a fucking puzzle box. Spell it out for me, Alex. Not what you _should_ want, what you _do_ want.”

Alex bit down on a flash of irrational anger and finally met Michael’s eyes and held them. “I told you. I told you at Caulfield, and before that. I told you I wanted to get to know you properly, I told you I shouldn’t have left you behind, I was gonna…you told me to come back, and…” And Michael had never showed. Alex had waited all day by his trailer, and Michael had never come. He’d gone to Maria instead, and left Alex to twist in the wind. Turnabout really was fair play.

Michael shook his head, a flash of anger in his eyes. “No, you told me we were over. You said you just wanted to be friends, and start over, forget everything that’d happened before.”

Alex frowned. “I never said that.”

“The hell you didn’t!” Michael snapped. 

“I didn’t! I…” Realisation finally broke over him, and Alex closed his eyes, mouth falling open. He was so stupid. He was so, so unbelievably stupid. He couldn’t even find his voice for a few seconds. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“I never said just friends.” Alex opened his eyes, dreading what Michael’s response to this was going to be. “I said friends, and I meant start over as in…as in trying to be more to each other than what we were.” Michael blinked, and started to frown. Alex closed his eyes again for a second. “I wanted…I wanted us to build a foundation, a, a relationship. Something more than just sex and hurting each other.” He swallowed and corrected himself. “More than me hurting you.”

“No.” Michael shook his head, staring at Alex like he’d betrayed him. “No, no, you…that’s not what you said, you said…”

“I said I wanted to know who you are.” Alex tipped his head back. “God. We’re so bad at this. How can people who are so objectively smart be so stupid?” He looked at Michael and made himself stay still rather than lean closer. “I wanted to get to know you as a person.”

“As a friend!” Michael gestured to him angrily. “You said…you said.” He swallowed, breath catching, and Alex braced himself for whatever he was about to say. “You said loved.” Michael’s voice was harsh, his gaze unmoving. “ _Loved_ , past tense. You loved me. Not now, back then.”

“Back…” Alex gaped at him. “What, when we were kids?” Michael nodded once, sharp. “I did. I…I do.” He gripped the edges of the couch to stop himself reaching out. “I was giving myself an out. I was trying, I’d _been_ trying to stop, and I couldn’t. I was a coward, okay? Don’t, wait,” he added when Michael opened his mouth to say something. “Just…I’m.” God, what was he doing? He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed explosively. “I’m bad at this, just, just give me a second.” What was he trying to say?

“Why?” Michael asked, incredulous, and Alex glared at him.

“Literally a second, Guerin.”

“Fine.” Michael’s mouth was a thin, angry line, but he quieted, and Alex used the moment to try and gather his fraying thoughts, to figure out exactly what he wanted to say and how to say it. 

“I used the past tense because I didn’t want to risk hearing it wasn’t true for you in the present,” he said finally, settling on that as the closest truth he could manage in the little time he’d been given. It wasn’t enough. Michael scoffed, that awful bitter smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, and Alex took a breath that had no hope of steadying him and forced himself to open his mouth again. “I’ve never…I’ve never stopped loving you. I don’t know if I can.” His vision blurred and he blinked quickly, needing to see Michael. Who shook his head, ducking it down and bringing his left hand up to cover his mouth for a moment. His intact fingers curled against his skin, and Alex wished he could reach out and touch them. “I told you at Caulfield,” he said quietly, the barest tremble in his voice. “I told you, I don’t look away.”

Michael pushed himself to his feet and turned away, hand pushing through his hair. Alex swallowed down more pointless tears and watched, drinking his fill while Michael’s eyes were elsewhere. He raked his gaze over Michael’s shoulders, his tousled hair, the crease at the corner of his mouth where his smirk sat. How soft the fleece lining of his jacket looked. How beautiful his hands, both of them whole, a matching set. Healed.

Alex felt his own deformities keenly, only one foot left with toes to curl. He tried to clench his jaw shut when Michael whirled around, wild-eyed. “You thought I knew how you felt, and I picked Maria.”

“I’m the bad choice.” Alex took a steadying breath. “I get it.”

“No, you don’t.” Michael shook his head, an unpleasant twist to his mouth. They stared at each other and looked away at the same time, the air thick between them. “I didn’t want to believe you,” Michael said evenly. “In Caulfield. You didn’t say anything afterwards and I was so angry…and when you came over that night, I was running on adrenaline and nothing else. The day after, I was just so tired, Alex. I just wanted everything in my head to shut up. The one person who could’ve given us answers about our home was gone, Max was on a total power high, and I hadn’t slept in like, over twenty-four hours at that point. I didn’t wanna see you, because I always feel worse when you leave. And now you’re telling me it’s the one time you would’ve stayed, and I made the wrong choice. Again.”

“Maria isn’t a wrong choice.”

“Isn’t she?” Michael turned away again, like he was trying to pace while standing still, needing to be in motion. “We’re good together, and she gets me, I never have to explain things to her. She just…she knows, we…” He shook his head in wordless frustration and gestured to Alex. “And you, I can’t remember the last time we understood each other. All we do is –”

“Crash into each other,” Alex said quietly. “Yeah.”

“And when we do…” Michael looked at him, and in his head Alex could so easily see one of the paths they could take. It would be easy. All he had to do was reach out, and Michael would come to him, and they would fall into each other in the best way they knew, like nothing had changed since they were kids. Hungry mouths, yearning skin. He was a live wire, humming with want, and Michael was a spark, barely contained.

“Yeah,” Alex said, completely inadequate. His mouth was dry, and he wrenched his eyes away. 

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I can’t tell you.” Alex took a breath and stood up, his stump aching. “And I’m not going to hurt Maria.”

“Do you love me?” Michael threw the question like a punch, a demand. “Now, right now, no explosions, no double meanings, do you love me?”

Alex wished for his crutch, for something he could lean on for support. No double meanings, no hesitations, nothing to hide behind, and no time to come up with a safe answer. Not that there was any safe answer if he was going to be honest. Alex let himself take exactly one deep breath before meeting Michael’s eyes to reply. “Yes.”

Michael didn’t move. For two, three long seconds they stood across from each other in Alex’s living room, and Alex wondered why it had taken him so long to say. It hadn’t been so hard in the end. Just words, no more substantial than air.

Michael tipped his chin back in a slow nod, and then stooped to grab his hat from the table, settling it on his head in a single, practiced motion. “Okay.”

 _Okay?_ Alex wanted to push for a response, anything more than that, but Michael was already turning away, and Alex could only watch his back as he walked to the door, pulled it open, and left. 

The phrase ‘turnabout’s fair play’ eddied through his head again, and Alex covered his mouth with his hand to stop a laugh that he could tell would turn into a sob if he let it out. No wonder Michael hadn’t wanted to come back to him if seeing Alex walk away time after time hurt as much as this. He heard Michael’s truck start outside and listened to it fade away.

He reminded himself of Maria, of how Michael unequivocally knew how Alex felt now and had still gone back to her. It didn’t help. He’d put so much mental distance between himself and his own desires, but all the walls were down now. He wanted to burst out of the cabin and chase Michael down. He wanted to drag him to bed and kiss him until neither of them could speak, until Michael understood how much Alex wanted him, how much he needed him. He wanted it to just be them, no one else to complicate things. Just the two of them, and the way Michael turned tender when they were alone, all his harsh edges smoothed away like Alex’s touch alone was healing.

He had to be on base by 0600 tomorrow morning. He had an appointment with his prosthetist in the afternoon. He needed to shower, clean his liner, get ready for bed.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut and refused to let even a single tear fall. He counted backwards from ten, dropped his hand from his mouth, and turned away from the door.

The day passed in a blur. Alex dragged himself out of bed, drank coffee on the drive to the base, worked out in the gym for an hour and a half and started his work day at 0800. Lisa, his prosthetist, went through the new adjustments he needed, and they discussed the possibility of changing from a pin lock suspension system to a ratchet or vacuum system once his residual limb had shrunk a little more. He did his job. He chatted with the other airmen in his vicinity. He ate enough food to keep him going, though it didn’t seem to taste of anything. 

He checked his phone surreptitiously throughout the day, and shoved it out of sight again the second he saw the blank screen, no message notifications from either Maria or Michael.

Every time he caught himself thinking of Michael, he wrenched his mind away and forced himself to do something else. He was good at compartmentalising and putting on a front. No one noticed anything out of the ordinary about the way he conducted himself. On good days he actually convinced himself of his own lies.

Today was not a good day.

He waited until he was in his car to check his phone for the final time, and even after all his earlier disappointments it was a shock to see Maria’s name. He almost dropped the phone in his haste to swipe the screen open and read the message.

_A promise is a promise. Michael and I are over, but we’re going to be okay. All of us._

A full-body shiver went through Alex’s skin. _Want me to come over? I just finished up here._

_I’m okay, Liz is keeping me company. I think Guerin’s gone back to the junkyard._

So Michael was Guerin again, for Maria. Alex knew exactly how that went. Before he could figure out what to say, Maria messaged again:

_I’m FINE! We’re all going to be okay, remember? We promised._

Alex took a deep breath, his blood fizzing. _Do you want to see me at all?_

_Come to the Pony after work tomorrow. Don’t bring Guerin._

_Okay._ Alex hesitated, then added, _I love you._

Maria sent back a gif of two people hugging tightly. _I love you too. See you tomorrow XxX_

Alex placed his phone carefully on his thigh and waited for the screen to go dark. Should he ask someone for advice on what to do now? Kyle? Liz, maybe? Or would Max or Isobel be the better choice, knowing Michael better than anyone?

In the end, he messaged Michael. _Where are you?_

No reply, so he started driving. The base was a ways outside Roswell, and he would be driving for ten minutes before he needed to turn either towards the centre or around to his cabin.

His phone buzzed after five. The road was empty, so he pulled over to check it. Michael hadn’t sent him a message – he’d sent him a photo of the outside of Alex’s cabin. Alex’s breath caught and he typed a reply as fast as he could. _Omw ETA 30 mins._ He realised after he’d put his phone down and started driving that he could have maybe used slightly less aggressive language, but it was too late now. Michael didn’t message back, and Alex definitely did not stick to the speed limit at every point along the way.

Michael was waiting on his porch again when he pulled in, and Alex had his seatbelt unbuckled before he’d even pulled the key from the ignition, barely remembering to put the handbrake on before he shoved the door open and stumbled out. Michael stood up, and Alex experienced a brief moment of blinding fear that he’d only come to say it was over for good.

But Michael took a step forward and Alex could see his face under the brim of his hat, see how nervous he looked. Michael was always the one coming to him, always the one to take the first step. Alex slammed his car door shut without looking at it and walked as fast as he could without breaking into an outright run. He crossed the space between them in large strides, automatically careful not to put too much weight on his prosthesis, not on rough ground where he couldn’t feel if there were rocks or trip hazards under its foot.

Up the stairs in two big steps and Michael was there, Michael’s eyes were wide and they flicked to Alex’s lips in the second before they collided. Alex cupped his face and walked him back until his back was against the wall, kissing him in short, desperate bursts. Michael’s hands pulled him close, closer, till Alex was basically pinning him in place. He slid the fingers of one of his hands into Michael’s hair and pulled, hearing the quiet, desperate noises coming from his own throat and not caring at all. Michael was kissing him back. Michael was holding onto him just as tightly, gasping against his mouth and gripping the side of his neck as though he was afraid Alex would fly away.

Michael’s arm went around his back, strong and sure, and Alex pressed himself impossibly closer, needing to feel Michael everywhere. They were both dressed for the cold, too many layers between them, but Alex couldn’t make himself pull back. He couldn’t stop kissing Michael now he’d started, couldn’t stop touching him, couldn’t stop any of it. He arched against him and his breathing stuttered when Michael’s tongue slid against his.

“Inside,” Michael said in a tiny gap between kisses, his voice wrecked and about twice as deep as usual. The sound of it resonated through Alex’s whole body, a tug of desire in the pit of his stomach answering. He’d dropped his keys, he realised after a second, and because bending down to pick them up seemed an insurmountable task, he kissed Michael again.

Michael gave as good as he got, one of his hands tight around the back of Alex’s head, holding onto him. He was so warm, even through all his layers. Alex moaned softly and kissed him over and over and over, breathless and hungry, alive only where Michael was touching him.

“Seriously,” Michael gasped, breaking away by the smallest amount and then pressing his mouth to Alex’s cheek, as if he knew how unbearable Alex would find it not to be kissing him. “Inside.”

Alex made an inarticulate sound and dragged his jaw against Michael’s just to feel his stubble against his skin. The fleece of Michael’s jacket brushed his chin and Alex wanted to bury his face in it, turn his nose against Michael’s neck and breathe him in. “I dropped my keys,” he mumbled after a long moment. Summoning words had become a massive task. It wasn’t like he was ever particularly eloquent around Michael anyway.

Michael’s laugh vibrated through Alex’s own chest where they were pressed together, and Alex gave into temptation and tucked his face against Michael’s neck, dropping his arms to wrap them around Michael’s back. Michael’s hold on him gentled, and Alex wondered when they had last hugged. Had they ever? He couldn’t remember. Michael’s curls blew against his ear and neck, and he shivered when he felt a kiss against his hairline. Michael’s arms were tight around his lower back and across his shoulders, heavy and grounding, and Alex squeezed him in some sort of attempt to convey how safe he felt.

“So I’m thinking you’re okay with the idea of us doing this?” Michael asked, rough and fond. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Alex pulled his head back to kiss him again, a quick, hard press of lips to lips. “Let me get my keys.” He sounded raw, and he realised as they drew apart slowly that he’d choked up a little, so relieved that he was about half a breath from crying. He swallowed and dropped to one knee, using the two seconds it took him to grab his keys to compose himself a little. Michael offered him a hand to help him up, and Alex took it, letting Michael pull him in.

“Hey,” he breathed, cupping Alex’s face, thumb brushing the soft skin under his eye. “You okay?”

“I’m gonna do it right this time,” Alex told him, out of breath. “No more…no more secrets, no more miscommunication.” He’d missed Michael so much and pushed it down so far that this overflowing of desire was overwhelming. He needed Michael close, close enough to smell and taste. It felt like if he stepped out of reach Alex would fall apart.

Michael kissed him, and it wasn’t anything like the urgent, hard kisses of before. This was sweet and devastating, and Alex clung to him and remembered with brilliant clarity how Michael had first kissed him in the UFO Emporium, with all the dizzy naivety and hope of something new.

“Inside,” Michael breathed. “For real this time.”

Alex nodded, but kept Michael’s arm around him with a hand on the back of his jacket, pulling him close as he tried to get the key into the lock. It took three attempts, but his reward was Michael’s mouth opening wet and hot against the side of his neck. Alex groaned and dragged him inside, letting Michael kick it shut behind them.

“Figured you’d wanna talk,” Michael said, eyes dark as Alex turned in the circle of his arms to kiss him again. 

“Later,” Alex promised. “After…I need…”

“Yeah.” Michael kissed him, hands curled over the backs of Alex’s shoulders before skimming down and sliding under his jacket, untucking his shirt. Alex made hungry, wanting noises at the feeling of Michael’s hands on his bare skin, using his grip on Michael to keep his balance as he walked backwards, trusting Michael not to let him trip.

How they made it to the bedroom was completely beyond him. How they got their clothes off was also a mystery. Alex wanted Michael’s hands and mouth everywhere at once, as much skin contact as he could physically get. It was the first time he’d lamented the loss of his leg purely as an extra area Michael’s skin couldn’t be touching his.

It would have been easy to be embarrassed by how desperate he was, but Michael left no room for it. His request that they move inside had been granted, so he was going full steam ahead, bearing Alex down onto his bed and groaning into his mouth, fitting his thigh between Alex’s legs and cursing when Alex rolled his hips up against him. It was like that kiss at the reunion all over again, all their restraint giving way under the force of how much they wanted each other.

It was impossible to doubt Michael’s intentions when he was like this. He was always so vulnerable like this, and Alex couldn’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t be floored by it. He allowed Alex anything, everything, and Alex, for once, could let himself be gentle. He could touch Michael’s skin with all the tenderness he deserved, he could kiss him like he was precious, could fit his hand to the small of Michael’s back and pull, hook his leg over the backs of Michael’s thighs and his arms around his shoulders and hold him close to let him know how welcome and wanted he was.

Michael gasped into his shoulder and fisted a hand in Alex’s hair. “Alex…”

 _What do you want_ , Alex translated, and turned his head to kiss Michael’s ear, closing his teeth so carefully on the lobe that Michael groaned, his cock hard where it was pressed against Alex’s stomach.

“Michael,” Alex breathed in reply, and Michael’s whole body shuddered, his throat moving on a high, wounded noise that went right to Alex’s core. He’d always called him Guerin before, even when they were having sex. He’d fought to keep that barrier between them, even when Michael had been driving him out of his mind with pleasure. It was still the name that came automatically to his lips. _Michael_ was a deliberate choice, something Alex would have to keep saying with intent. And he fully intended to.

“Michael,” he murmured again, leaning back and reaching up to take Michael’s face in his hands, pulling him in for a deep kiss.

There was a bottle of lube in the top drawer of the bedside table, and at some point Alex managed to fumble it into his grip and pour a stupid amount over his hand. He started jerking them off together in the tiny space between their stomachs, and Michael tipped them onto their sides. Alex on his good left side, Michael between him and the edge of the bed, both of their hands between them, working together while they panted and groaned into each other’s mouths. 

Michael’s leg was hitched over his thigh, and Alex loved that he’d never been fazed by the way his stump fit underneath, what remained of his calf hooked over Michael’s other leg. Michael kissed him and kissed him, Alex’s lips were sore and his breath was coming in gasps, his whole body straining to get as close to Michael as possible, sweating from the heat between them.

Michael’s free hand was on his face, and when Alex was too wound up to keep kissing him he turned his mouth against it and kissed that instead, Michael’s stuttered groan of appreciation finally tipping him over the edge of his own release. He let it blaze through him, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, then turned his head further, chasing Michael’s fingers until he could suck one, two into his mouth.

Michael cursed, practically sobbed his name, and came in hot pulses over their joined hands.

Alex opened his eyes and held Michael’s gaze as he let Michael’s fingers slip from his mouth, and smiled when Michael’s cock gave one last twitch. “I should warn you, the bath here isn’t much bigger than your tub in the Airstream.”

“How are you…using words right now.” Michael’s hair flopped in his face as he let his head fall onto the pillow, chest rising and falling with huge breaths. “Fuck. Alex.”

“Later.” He was already hot at the thought. “Clean up, talk, more sex. Maybe some food at some point,” he added, trying to figure out whether he was hungry or not.

“Food sounds good,” Michael agreed, eyelashes casting shadows over his cheeks before he opened his eyes and fixed Alex with a long look. “Talking?”

“Yeah.” Alex propped himself up a little on his elbow so he could work his left hand out and cup Michael’s cheek with it. His right was covered in lube and come, but they could deal with that in a minute. Right now he was preoccupied with the way Michael turned his head to kiss the heel of his palm, eyes falling closed again. He was the most beautiful thing Alex had ever seen, wrung-out and soft at the edges.

Michael breathed out against his fingers and darted a look up at him again. “Cleaning?”

Alex nodded and pushed himself slowly to sitting so he could reach over Michael to the bedside table. It was a little too far, but Michael held him up, shifting so Alex could lean on his shoulder and not overbalance. He grabbed tissues and wet wipes, and they exchanged small smiles as they cleaned up the mess they’d made together.

“So.” Michael followed Alex’s lead and sat up as well to dump the wipes in a small pile on the bedside table. “Talking.”

“Yeah.” Alex took a deep breath. “Real talking. No more…me saying one thing and you hearing another.”

“I don’t know how you’re gonna control that,” Michael drawled. His eyelids were drooping, and Alex leaned in to tip his chin up with two fingers, kissing him softly. It took away the twist to Michael’s mouth, the hard edge he always fell back on. Alex kissed him until Michael was kissing back, pressing forward into Alex’s space with his hands on the sides of Alex’s neck.

“Doing this,” Alex murmured, lips brushing Michael’s. 

“Huh?”

“Am I okay with us doing this, that’s what you said, outside.” Another kiss. They could do this as long as they were close enough to feel each other, he was sure of it. “Phrases like that, they’re…” Another kiss, lingering. “They’re open to interpretation,” Alex managed, eyelids fluttering as Michael swept one hand down his back. 

He let himself be pulled closer, legs open and flat on the bed while Michael lifted his knees up, his calves bracketing Alex’s hips. Facing each other with nowhere to hide. Michael’s hands wandered now, dancing across Alex’s arms, down his chest and sides, constantly drawn back up to his face. Alex understood the urge. One of his hands was curled around the side of Michael’s neck, fingertips buried in his hair, his other hand on Michael’s waist.

“How’s that?” Michael murmured, stroking a path down Alex’s chest with a broad, hot palm. They’d only had sex a few times, really, but it was still strange to feel the full shape of Michael’s left hand against his skin. He’d become used to it so quickly.

“What’s ‘this’?” Alex blinked his eyes open and tilted his head sideways, watching Michael’s expression as it flickered through half a frown before settling on wariness. “We could have different ideas of what that is,” Alex said, thumb rubbing a slow rhythm against the angle of Michael’s jawbone, rasping quietly over the stubble there. “You could mean this as in this right now, us sleeping together.”

“I don’t.” Michael’s eyes turned dark. “You know that. You’ve always known that.”

Alex nodded slowly, acknowledging that in the way he couldn’t quite acknowledge his own guilt. Michael deserved better, whispered a small part of him. Alex was damaged goods, incapable of loving without hurting, undeserving of the love Michael offered. He moved his hand forward a little, brushing his thumb over Michael’s lips, mesmerised by the way Michael’s tongue slid out to taste, to wet the skin there.

“I want to know everything about you,” Alex whispered, watching his thumb and Michael’s mouth for a second longer before meeting Michael’s eyes. “The way we are, I don’t…I don’t understand how I can…” Breathe, he’d said it already, Michael knew it, he could say it again. “How I can love you so much,” he said in a rush, “but know almost nothing about you.”

Michael’s lips twitched, and there was just a hint of bitterness in it, so Alex shifted closer and moved his thumb to make room for his lips. Michael’s fingers brushed against his jaw, and when Alex drew back, Michael cupped the back of his head, fingernails scratching soft lines against Alex’s scalp that made his breath hitch.

“You know everything important,” Michael murmured, but Alex shook his head.

“No, I don’t. I don’t…I don’t know what sort of music you listen to now,” he said, grasping for examples. “Or the kind of food you eat when you want to treat yourself. I don’t know most of what’s going on in your head, or what your dreams are like, or what your favourite book is. And you don’t know that stuff about me either,” he added, brows pinched. “We’ve barely had a dozen conversations that weren’t about life-or-death important stuff or didn’t end in sex.”

“Are you complaining?” Michael smirked, and Alex went still, fighting the urge to roll his eyes and pull away. 

“I don’t know why you do that,” he said flatly, and tightened his grip on Michael’s waist when Michael’s mask dropped for a second, bewilderment replacing that smirking confidence he put on like an invisible cowboy hat.

“What? Do…”

“That, like you’re…misdirecting, or…I don’t know. I don’t know.” He sighed and dropped his forehead against Michael’s. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to do this.”

“This,” Michael echoed cautiously, and Alex slid his hand into Michael’s hair to keep him close.

“A relationship,” he admitted, eyes closed. He wondered if Michael knew how much it cost him to admit that there were things he didn’t know or understand how to do right. Doing things wrong always had such a high risk, and he could never afford to mess up. Especially not with something as important as Michael.

“Well.” Michael’s knuckles slid under his chin and tipped his face up into a kiss that Alex accepted gratefully. “Me neither,” Michael murmured. “So we’re even on that score. We could…we can figure it out together, if that’s…”

“Yeah.” Alex kissed him again, relieved. “That’s what I want.”

“Okay.” Michael carded a hand through Alex’s hair, dropping another kiss on his parted lips. “Alright. Anything you want, okay?”

“You too.” Alex opened his eyes and drew back enough to look at him, frowning. “This is only going to work if we’re in it together. It’s anything _you_ want too.”

“What I want hasn’t changed,” Michael said, that rasp in his voice that meant he was being too honest. He would give Alex his truth, Alex would be speechless, Michael would close off again. Every time, like clockwork. “It’s you,” Michael said, like it was nothing. “It’s always been you.”

Alex swallowed and tried to break the pattern. “Me too.”

The change was electric. Michael’s whole face lifted, the corner of his lips curling up in the smallest smile like he couldn’t help himself, eyes gone warm and happy. Alex was breathless, and when he started to smile too, Michael laughed. “What?”

“You’re beautiful.” Alex couldn’t remember the last time he’d said exactly what was on his mind with no hesitation or second guessing slowing him down. It slipped out on a breath before he could even register what he’d said, and when he realised, he resolved not to even try to take it back or complicate it. Truth for truth. If Michael could be vulnerable when they were together like this, Alex could too.

Michael blinked, lips parted in surprise. It took him a few seconds to gather himself and laugh, looking down. “It’s all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.” There was a hint of colour to his cheeks though, and Alex grinned.

“Just accept the damn compliment, Guerin. I mean it,” he added, leaning in to kiss him once, quick and soft. “Michael. You’re beautiful.”

Michael breathed out against his lips, and when Alex drew back enough to look, he saw that Michael was smiling. “Careful,” he murmured, giving Alex a truly sinful look through his eyelashes. “I might get the idea you want me around.”

“Good. I do.” Alex rubbed a hand through Michael’s curls and decided to try more honesty. It seemed to be working so far. “You know, when I was deaged, I thought I’d ruined my own life.”

“You mean back then?” Michael frowned.

“No, now. I thought…past me, he thought, looking at my life, I’d wasted it.” Alex’s lips twitched in a humourless smile, remembering that that had been one of the first things he’d said to Michael when he’d gotten back to Roswell. Judging by Michael’s knowing look, he remembered too. “No friends, no love life, and I was an airman like my dad. Not exactly the future I’d hoped for.”

“I know how that goes,” Michael said. His mouth twisted, eyes following the path of his own hand as he drew it down Alex’s cheek, just brushing his eyelashes. “I had a full ride to UNM,” he said quietly. “Before…before everything.”

“A full scholarship?” Alex’s thumb dragged a back and forth stroke through Michael’s hair. “That’s amazing.”

“Would’ve been, maybe.” Michael shrugged, lips pressed together tightly. “I’ll never know. Took me a long time to get over that, to be honest. Making the console helped. I wanted to focus on leaving this rock behind, y’know? But I never even told Max and Isobel what I was doing. I don’t know what I thought would happen, if I ever managed to put it together. The sort of vehicle I’d have to attach it to, if that’s even possible, probably isn’t something I’d be able to build on my own. I can’t leave the planet, and I always knew that, deep down.”

“If anyone could figure it out, you could.” Alex was cold, suddenly. He wondered how much his piece of the console had helped move it to completion. He licked his lips and made himself ask. “If you could, would you? Go?” He loved and hated that Michael didn’t answer right away. He mulled the question over, a slight crease between his eyebrows.

“I always wanted to,” he said slowly. “I’ve never had anyone beyond Max and Isobel to care about. I couldn’t trust anyone else. You’re the only time I tried.” And look what had happened. Alex’s hands tightened on him reflexively, and Michael nodded like Alex had answered a question. “You’re the only exception to humanity being a pretty much constant disappointment to me since we came out of our pods.”

Alex’s throat tightened. “ _I’m_ an exception?” How low were Michael’s standards?

One side of Michael’s mouth lifted in a smile that had no rights being as fond as it was. “You’re not so bad.”

Alex’s mind replayed Michael’s scream as the hammer fell on his hand, Michael’s face at the Pony when Alex told him they were over, Michael shouting that he didn’t love him in Caulfield. He swallowed and pulled his hands into the space between them, holding them against his bare chest. “I’m pretty bad.”

Michael frowned, drawing back as well. His hands slid to Alex’s thighs, barely putting any pressure on them. “You’re the best person I know.”

“Jesus.” If that wasn’t appalling, Alex didn’t know what was. 

Michael’s frown deepened, and his eyes flicked from Alex’s hands to his face a couple of times before he set his mouth and pressed down onto Alex’s thighs, his palms hot like brands. “What’re you doing?”

“What?”

“What did I say? Was it something I said?” Michael looked so annoyed, but Alex realised in the second that he opened his mouth that it was, as always, directed at himself. “Why’re you…?” He jerked his chin at Alex’s hands, held against himself. When Alex just blinked at him, trying to figure out what to say, Michael sighed. “I’m not a mind-reader, Alex.”

Talking. Words. Alex knew communication was supposed to be the bedrock of relationships, in theory, but he’d never had to actually do it before. He stared down at Michael’s stomach and made himself reach out instead, skimming his right hand carefully up Michael’s side.

“Alex?”

“I don’t…” Why was this so difficult? “I’m not a good person,” he settled on, and frowned, not satisfied. “I mean…I just…”

“Hey.” Michael leaned forward and kissed the crown of Alex’s bent head. It was so surprising that Alex jerked his head up and almost smashed Michael’s nose, and his stuttered apologies were lost under Michael’s laughter. “Relax,” he smiled, reaching up to cup Alex’s jaw. “It’s not a test. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You deserve so much better than me.” Those were the words he’d been searching for, but they didn’t produce the reaction he expected. Michael just raised an eyebrow like Alex had said something particularly stupid.

“Weird take.”

Alex found himself breathing a laugh of pure disbelief. “Weird _take?_ ”

“Yeah.” Michael shrugged. “Seems to me like you’re the one who deserves better than an illegal alien who lives in a trailer and probably has a drinking problem. Definitely has issues.”

“Oh right,” Alex nodded, incredulous. “Because I’m a paragon of mental health.”

“Well.” Michael grinned, the bastard. “At least you’ve got a steady income. And a place to live that isn’t on wheels.”

“This cabin runs on a generator, and still has power cuts at least once a week,” Alex informed him, and realised that he’d started touching Michael properly again, his hands moving of their own accord.

“I can fix that for you. And if we’re making this a competition, I’m sorry, man, but I’ve got you beat.” Michael smirked and tipped his chin back like a dare. “I’m the town drunk and you’re a war hero. No contest.”

“That’s not…” Alex laughed, he couldn’t help it. “It isn’t a competition! I’m just saying –”

“You think I deserve better? Better than what?” Michael’s hand was warm on the back of his neck. “You’re the only thing that’s ever felt like home on this entire planet to me.” His smirk faded into something softer, and Alex couldn’t understand the ballooning feeling in his own chest. Like the threat of tears, but in a good way. Words failed him, yet again. He leaned forward and kissed Michael instead, scooting closer until they were chest to chest, arms and legs a loose tangle keeping each other close. 

“I’m bad at words,” he breathed a minute later, once he was convinced that he’d gotten his point across. “I can never think on the spot when you’re around.”

Michael kissed the corner of his mouth, then leaned forward to kiss along his jaw. Alex tilted his head back and closed his eyes, stomach jumping at the feeling of Michael’s tongue against his neck. “Wonder if I can fuck the words right out of you,” Michael breathed, voice a low tease that sent fire racing up Alex’s spine.

“You can,” he said without thinking. “I’d let you.”

“Mmmm.” Michael’s lips sucked gently at a spot behind Alex’s ear that had his toes curling. “Reckon we’ve talked enough to get to the ‘more sex’ part of the evening?” 

“Yes.” Alex managed to suck in a deep breath and moved to kiss Michael quickly. “More talking after?”

“Tomorrow,” Michael grinned, and the way his drawl only got more pronounced in bed really did things to Alex. “I’ll stay the night.”

He hadn’t asked, and Alex kissed him deeply, relieved and thrilled in equal measures. He _hadn’t asked_ , which meant that Michael had understood how much Alex wanted him there. They could do this. Partners, boyfriends, whatever they were going to call each other – they could decide that tomorrow – they were going to be in this together. His earlier reservations were distant, and he let Michael make him forget them entirely with hot kisses and the pressure of his skin.

Touch was always where he felt surest of himself. There were no misunderstandings when they were like this, and they connected so well that they barely had to speak at all. Which was lucky, because Alex swiftly became incapable of stringing a sentence together. Michael seemed single-mindedly devoted to taking him apart, and for once, Alex let him. He stopped trying to hold back or keep up any barriers. He wanted Michael to see him as everything he was, as everything he could be when they were together.

Michael worked him open slowly, because he knew that was what Alex liked best. He dragged his jaw along the insides of Alex’s thighs because it made Alex curse and pant. Alex wasn’t naturally inclined to silence in bed, but it was something he’d forced himself to do in the past. He never quite managed it for Michael, but now he didn’t even try. 

“You’re loud,” Michael breathed against his chest, three fingers in and adding more lube.

“Your fault,” Alex managed, and threw his head back on a wild, choked noise when Michael started thrusting his fingers in again, harder now. “Fuck, _fuck_ …”

“I’m getting to it,” Michael promised, and Alex laughed and groaned at the same time, trying to pull Michael closer with both arms and legs. Michael held himself steady and kept his hand moving, and Alex gasped on every thrust, chest heaving, starting to sweat. When he opened his eyes, he saw Michael looking down at him with such naked hunger in his face that it made his stomach flip over.

“Faster,” Alex exhaled. “Fuck me, c’mon, come _on_ , Michael.”

Michael grinned, and Alex knew it was because he’d said his name. “How’re those words coming along?”

“Can’t…fuck, Michael, please!” He shuddered, digging his nails into Michael’s shoulders. “Come on!”

“Yeah,” Michael murmured, hauling himself up to kiss him. Alex groaned into it, dragging his hands up Michael’s back to fist in his hair, two big handfuls of curls crushed against his palms. Michael dropped down on his elbow, almost smashing their teeth together, and Alex felt how hard he was against his thigh.

If words had been difficult before, they were impossible when Michael finally got the condom on and shoved a pillow under Alex’s back, lifting both his legs over his own hips and sliding in. 

They’d done this once before, in the Airstream, but Alex hadn’t surrendered to it like this, pulling Michael in instead of just holding still and waiting. It had never felt so good, not ever, and he couldn’t even tell Michael. Part of him didn’t want to, and reaching for words was too difficult anyway. Michael leaned down over him, one of his hands hot as fire as he dragged it down Alex’s chest, and Alex reached up to pull him down. He had to go still, but Alex needed to kiss him, needed to tell him the only way he could right now how good it was.

“You okay?” Michael breathed against his lips, and Alex nodded, hooking his good leg around Michael as much as he could and rolling his hips. Michael smiled, dazed and heavy, and pulled back to start fucking him properly. Alex was hot all over, his whole body molten and moving, every exhale an, “ _Ahh,_ ” of pleasure.

It built steadily, need and heat and the smell and noise of it, until Alex was arching his back and groaning, until he had to touch himself or die.

“Like that,” Michael said, so deep it was barely audible. “That’s right, just like that.”

Alex made a strangled sound and jerked himself off in time to Michael’s thrusts, clenching around him to make Michael cry out too. He couldn’t keep his eyes from squeezing shut, too overwhelmed by his other senses to be able to absorb sight as well, but he could feel Michael’s eyes on him, heavy and hot. He was going to be feeling this all day tomorrow; he was going to wake up with Michael in his bed in the morning.

The heat built to a sudden crescendo at the thought, and Alex came with his whole back arched off the bed, a livewire held safe in Michael’s hands. Michael fucked him through it and made to pull out, but Alex grabbed onto him with his free hand and held him there, and rolled his own hips again, again, until Michael kept going.

He was going to be feeling this all day tomorrow. What had been a shock of heat the first time was delicious the second, and as Alex groaned and thought it again, it became a sort of bone-deep satisfaction, almost smug. He could open his eyes now, and he reached up to touch Michael’s face, creasing in increasing desperation, his hips losing their rhythm. It hurt a little, but not in a bad way, and Alex curled his fingers around the side of Michael’s neck and watched rapturously as he fell apart.

Michael was so gentle as he pulled out, and Alex didn’t let him go far. He drew on a reserve of strength to pull Michael to him as soon as he’d dumped the condom and rolled half on top of him, pressing his mouth to Michael’s throat. He could feel his adam’s apple bob under his lips as Michael swallowed, still catching his breath.

“Don’t let me screw this up,” Alex breathed, holding onto him and revelling in the heat and smell of him.

“Ditto.” Michael exhaled heavily and lifted a hand to stroke down Alex’s shoulder to his waist. “We’ll, like…tell each other stuff, right? Like, if I do something you don’t like, you have to tell me. Like before, when…shit, I still don’t know what I said, but you got all annoyed at me.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Alex couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said either, and his brain was far too foggy to be thinking of specifics right now anyway. “We can be patient with each other. Or try to be, anyway.”

“It’s like translation,” Michael said, his throat vibrating against Alex’s face. “Like we speak different languages, or dialects or whatever. That’s all it is. You say one thing, I hear another, because you’re always talking in circles when you talk at all.”

Alex frowned. “I don’t mean…I mean, I mean what I say, but –”

“You’re literally doing it now,” Michael said, amused, and Alex shifted so he could lie his head on the pillow next to him and see his face. “You backtrack and talk in circles.”

“I don’t know how not to.” Alex shook his head as much as he could while lying down, moving to brush their noses together. “I don’t get how you can say what you mean on the first try and get it _right_.”

“What the hell do you do?” Michael asked, mystified, and Alex snorted.

“Plan ahead, obviously.”

“God, you control freak.”

Alex grinned. “Occasionally. Control is good,” he added, thinking about it. “It’s safer.”

“Well, I’ve always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda guy.”

“Don’t I know it,” Alex said dryly, and clenched his jaw on a yawn. “Wanna eat something quick before…?”

“Yeah, that’d be good.” Michael only had to tilt his head a little to kiss him, and Alex slid a hand into his hair happily. Having Michael close enough to kiss at all times was really the best way to live.

Michael got up to stretch as Alex sat on the edge of his bed and rolled his liner on again, slotting his stump into the prosthesis and standing up to click it into place. It was kind of loose, but he figured he’d only be standing on it for a few minutes, and he really couldn’t be bothered to put on any socks.

They had toast, because it was quick and easy, and Alex moved his chair right up against Michael’s so their shoulders would be pressed together as they ate. Clingy, maybe, but he’d given up on caring. “I’ll make breakfast,” Michael offered when they were back in bed, and Alex smiled, eyes half closed.

“You wanna get up at five twenty?”

“Oh my God, what?”

Alex laughed into his shoulder. “I don’t eat breakfast till I’m on base anyway, most days. But you can make me a coffee if you’re that keen.”

“I will, you know.” Michael rolled over and pressed back against Alex, spine to chest. “Even if that is only in like, six hours.”

“You don’t actually have to, I was just kidding.”

Michael grabbed his arm and pulled it over his waist. “I want to, Alex. Let me.”

Alex opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. “Okay.” He could sense Michael’s smile, even if he couldn’t see it.

“Thanks.”

“You’re the one doing me the favour, shouldn’t I be thanking you?” He made no sense at all.

“You can thank me tomorrow.” Michael yawned and wriggled, settling himself in place more comfortably. 

“Okay.” Alex caught the yawn and hid it against Michael’s shoulder. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

It probably said something that no one had noticed anything amiss yesterday, when Alex had basically been dead inside, but today all he seemed to be getting was double-takes and amused looks. 

“Do I have something on my face?” he asked Peterson out of sheer exasperation, because she’d taken one look at him and broken into a huge grin.

“Yes, sir, it’s called a smile.” She kept grinning. “I’ll get these back to you by the end of the week,” she added, lifting the folders he’d given her, and he waved her off with a muttered thanks.

He’d have to get this under control by the time he saw Maria. It was proving quite difficult, mainly because his prediction that he’d be feeling what he and Michael had done last night all day had come true, and he was the furthest from displeased about it that he’d ever been. 

Michael had messaged him in the afternoon, Alex saw when he checked his phone at the end of the day. _Same again tonight?_

Alex messaged back on his way to his car. _I’m going to the Pony now, but after yes? I can come to you if it’s easier, so you don’t have to wait on the porch again._

_What’s easier for you?_

Alex rolled his eyes. _Not what I asked._

_I’ll come to yours anyway. You have a bigger bed._

That was true enough, and Alex let it go for now. _I’ll see you later then,_ he typed, and after a ridiculously long hesitation, added a _X_.

Michael didn’t reply, which Alex was a little relieved by. The last thing he needed was for his head to be stuck on Michael when he saw Maria. The drive helped, but he was still nervous when he pulled up to the Wild Pony, its neon sign flashing in the dusk. It wasn’t too busy inside, only a few people at the tables, no one playing pool, and Alex could see Maria over behind the bar.

Liz was there too, and Alex regained a little confidence when Maria caught sight of him and beckoned him over, and Liz turned around and smiled.

“So you and Michael are official now, right?” Liz asked the second he was at her side, one of her arms sliding around him to squeeze. 

Alex glanced at Maria, and she rolled her eyes. “If you’re not, I’ll smack you.”

“We are.” Alex pulled the nearest stool over so he could be close to Liz when he sat, and kept his eyes on Maria. “Are you okay?”

She sighed and shrugged, waving the rag in her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I will be. It sucked, but.” She shrugged again. “It had to be done.” She handed Alex a bottle of beer and held up two fingers for him and Liz to wait as she went to serve someone else.

“Is she okay?” Alex whispered to Liz as soon as she was out of earshot.

Liz made a face, sort of sad. “Better than yesterday. She was more angry than anything, I think, but I get that. It’s easier to be angry than sad.”

“Yeah.” Alex’s insides squirmed, and he wrapped his fingers around the cold neck of the bottle.

“It’s her choice,” Liz told him seriously, elbowing him in the side. “Don’t get all weird about it.”

“It’s a weird situation.”

“And that’s before you bring in the whole…” She lowered her voice. “Government conspiracy and aliens thing.”

“Yeah.” Alex pursed his lips and clinked his bottle against her glass. “Oh, to have a simple life.”

“Okay.” Maria was back, and she gave him a look that somehow managed to be both amused and severe. “Here’s how this is going to work. We don’t mention Guerin for…I’m going to say at _least_ two weeks. He doesn’t exist to me until then. After, we can reintroduce the idea of his existence slowly.” She made a face. “We’ll see how it goes. I am upset, and I am still pissed, but we are still friends.” She dropped her elbows onto the bar and pointed at him. “We are still going to hang out, we are still going to watch movies next week at Kyle’s, and you are expressly forbidden from getting a guilt complex over this whole mess. Got it?”

Alex’s smile had been slowly growing through her speech, a fond, unfolding thing that he couldn’t contain. “Got it.”

“Good.” She reached out and touched his jaw, just a brief brush of fingertips against his skin. “This is better,” she said, with that contemplative air she got sometimes, dropping her hand and nodding to herself. “You look better. He’ll be better, and I’ll recover.”

“I thought we were pretending he didn’t exist,” Liz said dryly, and Maria smiled at her.

“Two minutes. Alex is about to ask me whether I’m _sure_ I’m okay.” She gave him a smug look, and he had to laugh.

“Are we sure _you’re_ not an alien?”

“Pretty sure.” She grinned back. “I’m fine, Alex, and you know what? It’s knowing about that that makes it okay. Knowing the first thing he did when he decided to be with me was tell me the truth about everything…” She shrugged and gave him a small smile. “It helps.”

Alex nodded, and grabbed her hand impulsively. “Maria…”

“I know.” She squeezed his hand back with both of hers. “I love you too.” She let go with one hand and reached out to Liz with a grin. “And I love you as well, obviously.”

“Damn straight.” Liz smiled at her, and Alex bumped her with his shoulder, so relieved and happy that he wanted to laugh.

He sat at the bar with Liz and chatted with her and Maria, whenever she wasn’t attending to other things. Soon he would go back to his cabin, where Michael would be waiting for him. It wouldn’t be too long before he was honourably discharged and he had full control of his own life again. All things considered, he figured that even in the eyes of his younger self, he wasn’t doing too bad.

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me on tumblr](https://myrmidryad.tumblr.com/), where my entire life has been taken over by this show!


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